Heidi Cullinan

Lately I haven’t been able to watch Lucifer live, so my routine is to start my Tuesday mornings watching on my phone as I make my morning tea. For whatever reason, the app I use hasn’t updated its Lucifer home page, so as it loaded it said, “Lucifer will return in October,” meaning my not-yet-caffeinated brain screamed for a moment, thinking I was about to watch the finale already. Then I finally caught the date at the end of the tag: 2017. I suppose this is my punishment for not helping the show with its ratings by watching live and tweeting anymore. Noted, Luci.

Streamed or watched in real time, this episode was once again a character-filled delight, an éclair I was so pleased to dig into a second time in order to write up this recap. I have stressed this so many times this season, but I’m going to underscore it again: Unlike other shows, and even other seasons of this show, the biggest payout here isn’t the plot, but the development of the characters, subtle layers that bloom over time. The writers have been establishing the most subtle of seeds, harvesting them patiently over the course of 16 episodes — some over the course of seasons, in the case of Lucifer and Chloe, and Linda/Maze/Amenadiel — and now, in this episode, some of the sprouts are beginning to seriously shoot up.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

I think anyone who loves character-driven stories can appreciate Lucifer, but authors especially find this show delicious because this is the work we do every day, and it’s so fun to watch someone else do it. Watch being the keyword. I don’t want to be a Lucifer writer, I just want to be their fan!

Anyway. We’re here to recap, so let’s recap. And there’s so much great stuff to cover, so let’s dive in.

The theme of this show is, as has been lately, Lucifer and Cain/Pierce’s quest to get rid of Cain’s immortality. At the end of the last episode, Lucifer had a brilliant idea, but we didn’t get to hear it. We open this episode with the unveiling of his plan: erase Pierce’s sin by bringing Abel back to life in a recently deceased body on Earth. This would make Abel technically alive and Cain by default innocent. Pierce/Cain calls a timeout and says, “Back up. Are you telling me Abel has been in hell all this time?” It turns out, yes, Abel is indeed in hell, and he was the first resident.

Pierce gets excited and back at the precinct starts flipping through a book of what I assume is recently deceased criminals, but Lucifer tells him to slow down and explains the rules as he understands them, which is that souls must go into a very recently deceased body. He’s basing this experience, of course, primarily on when his mother came back last season. As they’re trying to figure out how to find a recently dead person, Chloe comes in with a case full of explosions and people in critical condition at the hospital. “Sounds promising,” Lucifer says, to Chloe’s confusion.

What concerns her, though, is when she asks Lucifer if he’s coming with her, Pierce overrules her and says, “Actually, Lucifer is working with me this time.”

Dan goes with Chloe instead. They investigate the scene, an office where a bomb was delivered by messenger and detonated when it was opened by the assistant. She wasn’t the target, though, because the package was addressed to her boss, producer Alexa Lee. She arrives at the scene while they’re processing it, and she’s quite shaken up by what’s happened to her team and what almost happened to her. She was at home with her Pilates instructor when the bomb went off. She says she doesn’t know who would have targeted her since she has so many enemies, this being Hollywood and all, and directs them to her assistant, Bree Garland. She’s devastated to hear it was Bree who opened the box and is in the ICU.

Lauren German as Chloe and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

As fate would have it, it’s Bree Lucifer and Pierce are standing over in the hospital as they consider potential replacement body candidates for Abel — not knowing she’s part of Chloe’s case — though Lucifer immediately rules her out for their purposes. He points out to Pierce that the body in front of them is young, and if he puts Abel inside of it, they could be together for a long, long time waiting out the curse. They turn to an elderly man in a bed nearby with no next of kin. Lucifer spreads his wings, disappears to hell and comes back with a soul. Except it isn’t the old man Abel goes into. It’s the young woman, Bree Garland.

They hunt for Abel/Bree, but there’s no sign of him — now her. They figure out it’s Chloe’s witness, too, and though Lucifer wants to explain to her, Pierce points out it’s impossible since there are so many supernatural elements at play now. They don’t know how to track him, but since Maze was one of the demons who tortured him, they go to her for advice.

Meanwhile, Dan and Chloe are at the precinct investigating people who have threatened Alexa, and the list is long. They discover, though, a series of threatening notes with similar handwriting upset about one of Alexa’s movies, The Plunge. The author of the notes has a website outlining his conspiracy theory and a popup window handily offering a handwriting sample, which matches the threatening notes. They decide to go check him out.

While Lucifer and Pierce are heading to Maze and Dan and Chloe are checking out conspiracy theorists, Charlotte is in a therapy session with Linda. She’s trying to find ways to get her lost memories back, methods that include drinking dubious substances purported to help her quest. Nothing is working, though, so she asks Linda for some tips. Linda wants her to focus instead on unpacking her desire for control and talk instead about what she does remember. Linda presses her, trying to get her to talk about her hell loop, but Charlotte gets upset and refuses to stay, let alone talk.

Tom Welling as Pierce and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Maze is more than happy to give advice on Abel — “You never forget your first” — and lets them know Abel is fluent in all manner of languages, because they kept changing his hell loop. Abel would go out partying, and then “Cain” would show up to kill him. They also realize Abel probably doesn’t know he’s not still in hell, thinking this is just another loop. Maze says the trick to finding him is to think like Lucifer and chase the ladies, so out they go on the town to hunt him down.

We cut to Abel, walking around in Bree’s body, almost getting hit by a taxi, then hitting on a group of well-dressed young women. One of the highlights of this episode is Abel not ever fully grasping (or caring) that he now resides in a woman’s body. The actress playing him (Lauren Lapkus) is clearly having a great time, and honestly, I entirely bought that this character is a man in a woman’s body. Maze calls him a poon hound, and that’s pretty much the sum of his existence. The first words out of his mouth are, “Ladies, ladies, let’s be fruitful and multiply.” He also later brags about how many flocks he has, apparently a Sumerian come-on line. Abel is great.

Guest star Lauren Lapkus as Abel/Bree and DB Woodside as Amenadiel in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

As Abel follows the women to a rooftop bar, Chloe and Dan visit the conspiracy theorist, who doesn’t have a driveway, only a wooded path with no clear markings, and he greets them with a sniper scope. When he discovers they’ve come because of his notes, though, he’s excited, thinking someone has joined his cause. He’s shocked to hear of the attack on Alexa, though he insists he didn’t do it. He said she was going to die because everyone was going to die. It turns out she used his conspiracy theory in The Plunge, and now he’s upset because he thinks no one will take his issue seriously. Though he does give her props for his uptick in Twitter followers. All 146. He does list a number of other people he thinks are after her, including Big Frack, the Bolivians and the carnies.

Chloe will have to wait to check out his list of theoretical enemies, and she has the area checked to be sure he’s not hiding something, but she’s been distracted the whole time, because she’s thinking about Lucifer. She’s upset that Pierce took him away so easily after she trained him, and she’s worried about what this means. Dan tries to assure her she’s just being possessive and no one is taking Lucifer away, but Chloe is still bothered by it.

Of course, we as viewers love that she’s so bothered. It’s about time someone stirred her emotions to the point that she feels a flare of possessiveness about Lucifer.

DB Woodside as Amenadiel in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Abel is enjoying himself — or at least the view of the bosoms — at the rooftop bar, but when Amenadiel approaches him, he objects, saying, “I do not want to lay with you or any other man. It’s not my thing.” Amenadiel ignores this, saying he knows Abel was brought here as a pawn and is only trying to help him get back to where he belongs. Abel ignores everything he says and repeats he doesn’t want to lie with Amenadiel, complaining that all the men keep asking him, at which point Amenadiel produces a mirror and shows Abel what he looks like. Abel is pleased, especially to find out he has his own breasts to fondle.

Amenadiel urges Abel to remember how this scene always plays out for him, and Abel grimly acknowledges that yes, he knows how this will go. Cain will show up to kill him. It doesn’t matter what he does. When he seeks out revelry, Cain shows up and murders him. Amenadiel offers him a way out, giving him a gun, suggesting Abel kill himself. Abel is intrigued, saying he’s never tried that before.

Pierce and Lucifer are still hunting for Abel, but Pierce is frustrated, unsure of the plan. Lucifer says fear not, he thinks he knows exactly what to do. His father is an eye-for-an-eye kind of man — Pierce should let Abel kill him.

Dan’s team verifies that yes, the conspiracy theorist did tell the truth, he doesn’t have any trace of an explosive compound, and Chloe has been chasing down some of his other enemy lists, just to be sure. The explosives were made in Bolivia, so it seemed fitting to at least check it out. Alexa does have a lot of international financiers, which is normal, and there are some Bolivian ones. There are some drug cartel members, it turns out, who are on the list, and one of them landed in L.A. that morning.

He’s gone, it turns out, to track down Bree, except Bree of course is already dead. It’s Abel in Bree’s body he’s tracked all the way to the rooftop bar, just as Lucifer and Pierce arrive. Instead of shooting himself, though, Abel asks, “How do you know all of this? Who are you?” and picks up the gun. It’s at that moment the drug cartel guy has lifted his gun to shoot Bree — Abel fires first, killing the drug lord, and he falls into the pool. Abel/Bree runs off.

Lucifer berates Amenadiel for getting involved, and the two brothers — how ironic is this? — fight. Amenadiel says he’s been tailing them and stepped in because Lucifer doesn’t understand how dangerous it is to anger their father. Lucifer insists that’s his point because he doesn’t have anything left to lose, he’s already lost everything: namely, his devil face. Amenadiel tells him to remember that there are so many things he could still take away. Lucifer refuses to cower, and Amenadiel insists he’ll keep getting in their way.

Pierce discovers the identity of the man in the pool, and they realize they do have to come clean to Chloe now. Lucifer is upset, though, with how calm Chloe is when she finds out Pierce lost her witness — twice. “Not going to tear him a new one? What, you have a soft spot for him?” Chloe points out Pierce is her boss and that he calls the shots. She does get in a dig, though, about Pierce stealing her partner.

Chloe also reveals she thinks the bomb was meant for Bree and not Alexa, since the hit man came after her. The Bolivians also knew Bree always opened her boss’ mail. They don’t know why yet, though, so they decide they need to go to Alexa again. Chloe asks to have her partner back, and Pierce says he needs to go hunt Bree down before the cartel does. He misgenders her, though, thinking of her — rightfully so, if you think about it — as Abel, so Lucifer corrects him for Chloe’s sake.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer and DB Woodside as Amenadiel in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Chloe and Lucifer interview Alexa, who is shocked to hear Bree might be the one who was targeted, but even more shocked to hear she’s still alive and released from the hospital. She says she’s lost without her and needs her back, though it’s also obvious to the audience at least that she’s jarred by the fact that Bree isn’t dead. She certainly smells guilty from here. Alexa says she let Bree handle everything, including all the relationships with the investors. Alexa insists she can’t call out of the office because only Bree knows how, and she can’t even open the safe that has information that would help them figure out why the Bolivians might target her because it’s locked with Bree’s biometric fingerprint. Obviously, Bree was hiding something in there.

It turns out it was two wire transfers for $50,000, which Dan digs up in his research. Bree certainly looks guilty. When Lucifer doesn’t seem too upset by this, Chloe digs in, pointing out it was a betrayal for her to turn on the woman who helped her in Hollywood, using the contacts she got by working with her and leaving her as soon as someone else showed up. She very quickly is clearly talking about Pierce and Lucifer, not Alexa and Bree, and Dan is obviously enjoying his ex-wife’s consternation. Lucifer, as usual, is oblivious to everything.

Pierce uses Maze to track Abel, and they’re in the middle of strategizing when Abel shows up and shoots Pierce without warning. Of course, Pierce is still immortal, so he gets right back up again. When Abel realizes he hasn’t killed his brother, he recoils in terror, then begs Cain to make it quick. Cain says he’s not going to kill him, because he needs him alive to help him die. Abel is confused, so they try to explain: He’s not dead. He’s not in hell. He’s not being punished over and over anymore. He’s alive.

Pierce catches Lucifer up on the details at the precinct, letting him know that the even-Steven plan didn’t work — obviously, since he’s still alive. It’s time for plan C, Pierce says, even though they don’t have a plan C yet. He’s confident they’ll think of something, though. He trusts Lucifer.

They need to keep the Bolivians from killing Bree/Abel, which will be easier with him in custody. He’s willing to do whatever they say, or rather, whatever the beautiful Chloe and Charlotte tell him. It’s at this point he starts bringing up the number of sheep he owns, but mostly he’s completely compliant, though also obviously nearly useless as a witness to Chloe since he doesn’t have Bree’s memories. Chloe thinks Bree is suffering from PTSD. Charlotte is mostly mystified that she would follow them so blindly, knowing it means jail. “I’ll do whatever it takes to stay out of that hell,” Abel says, and Charlotte is shaken, because of course she’s thinking of her own time in hell.

Tom Welling as Pierce and guest star Lauren Lapkus as Abel/Bree in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Pierce and Lucifer get nervous, though, when Chloe takes Bree/Abel into her custody — it’s not going to take much for Chloe to figure out something is seriously not right with “Bree.” Lucifer follows her to try to take care of it.

Amenadiel, meanwhile, has tracked Abel — or so he thinks — to Chloe and Maze’s place, but it’s a trap for him set by Maze. She’s set up her punching bag to look like Abel from the back, and then she starts fighting Amenadiel, and also venting her long overdue frustrations about his relationship with Linda and how they kept it from her. I can’t tell if she’s upset because she still has feelings for him or because she has feelings for Linda. Frankly, I’m hoping it’s the latter, but we’re going to have to wait to see.

Chloe takes Bree/Abel to Alexa’s office so she can open the safe, trying to interrogate her on the way, but of course Bree knows nothing, and all her replies are sexual come-ons. Lucifer keeps trying to deflect them and keep Chloe from being suspicious, but it’s a lot of work. While they’re examining Alexa’s office, Chloe gets a call from Dan, who has discovered Alexa picked up Bree’s phone from the hospital and also rescheduled her regular Pilates appointment — usually in the morning — for 2 p.m. exactly that day. It was as if she was making sure she was out of the office when the bomb arrived and that she had an alibi. Maybe, they think, the Bolivians were working with Alexa, not Bree. The transfers to Bree’s account were attempts to silence her for an attempt at exposure, and when it didn’t work, they tried a more direct approach. Dan muses aloud at why Alexa would send them to her office where they could potentially find evidence to expose her. At that exact second Bree/Abel puts his finger on the biometric lock, right as Chloe figures out it’s probably a trap. They open it, and there is indeed a bomb inside.

They get Pierce on the phone with Dan, and everyone is trying to get Chloe out of there, but she won’t go. Lucifer is particularly upset, because he knows this isn’t Bree at all. If Chloe would leave, it would be him with Abel, and he could whisk him away before the explosion and survive. He could survive the explosion easily as well. But Chloe is here, making him mortal, and she won’t leave, meaning she’s in danger. She says she’s there to protect Bree, as is her duty, and so Pierce coaches her through how to diffuse the bomb.

She manages it, but Lucifer is upset because Pierce’s priority was clearly to protect Abel’s life — for his own self-interest, in lifting his curse — and Lucifer’s priority is Chloe.

They’re able to get a print for Alexa at the scene and get her to confess she was laundering money for the Bolivians — which is what Bree was trying to expose. Chloe thanks Lucifer for helping her, saying she couldn’t have done it without him, but he’s upset, knowing without him she wouldn’t ever have been in danger in the first place.

Tricia Helfer as Charlotte in Lucifer. (Photo: John P. Fleenor, Fox)

Charlotte goes back to therapy — good for you, Charlotte!!! And good for you, Lucifer, for promoting self-healing — and gets real at last with Linda. She confesses her hell loop, which was that she’d wake up every morning, have breakfast with her family, then watch them get killed by people she’d helped go free and do nothing to stop it. She doesn’t know what it takes to make sure she doesn’t go back there, but that’s what she wants to do. Linda tells her she thinks she’s making a great start.

I really love the way this show pushes us to explore the idea of what hell is and what it takes to go there. That we create our own tortures, that they come from our own senses of guilt and shame and failures. I love the way so much of this show is characters helping each other through those fears — characters who are traditionally written off as simply evil and bad. I seriously just love this show.

Abel and Cain have a moment together, Abel thanking him for saving his life, Cain being pretty chill about everything, even offering to shake his hand. Abel’s not ready for that, though, and they part ways for now.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Lucifer approaches Cain as well and does something he’s never done before: goes back on his word. He says he has to dissolve his alliance because he can’t help him undo his curse. Their plans threatened Chloe, and that’s a line he’s unwilling to cross. Cain points out the devil never goes back on his word, and Lucifer says he realizes that, and he’s surprised he doesn’t feel bad about it, that this is so easy to do. Cain accepts it well enough, saying he still has hope, so long as Abel as alive.

It’s at that moment that Abel walks into traffic and gets hit by an ambulance, and the episode ends.

I hunted down a promo to see if there was any hint at whether Abel makes it through — nope, no help there. I hope he sticks around. He’s a sleaze, but he’s super fun, and I loved the dynamics of this episode so much.

I haven’t had time to sit down and rewatch this entire season in a sitting yet, but I imagine it has to feel like eating a pint of ice cream. It’s all just so yummy and rich and wonderful, and each bite is better than the last. No explosions, no crazy developments. Just character, character, character.

I know this is a show about the devil, but man, as far as I’m concerned, Lucifer is nothing but heaven.

See you next time.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

We’re back with another new episode — yay! — and a guest visit by Drew Carey. Carey served for six years as a United States Marine (1980-1986), so this seems like a pretty good fit. Let’s find out!

Guest Star Drew Carey as John Ross in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

We open in Rota, Spain (so many NCIS memories come flooding back), with young Marines taking target practice in the countryside as we hear choppers overhead. We have one hotshot hitting his bull’s-eye, with two pals who aren’t quite his equal. They are laughing, taking bets on who is the best, with the other two wanting to go double-or-nothing for a chance to break even. Hotshot laughs, says he’s fine with taking all their money and turns back to shoot again. Only his vision blurs, then he drops to the ground, out cold.

Cue awesome opening theme song and credits!

We shift to McGee and Bishop entering the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness with McGee sharing factoids I could have gone the rest of my life, or at least this evening, not knowing. The door-close button on elevators do nothing he says, are merely a placebo to make you think you are in control. OK, I don’t know that I care one way or the other. But then he has to add how it’s ironic that pushing the button makes us feel like we’re in control, but the button itself carries 40% more germs than the average public bathroom toilet seat. Aaaaand … thanks. Pardon me while I go hunt down some hand sanitizer.

Meanwhile, Torres is having angst over an IRS request for info dating back to Torres’ undercover days in South America. Reeves (hello, Clayton!) offers how he had a friend who was undercover in Borneo who took years and many dollars to get straight with the IRS. Something about writing off a helicopter as a company car … Enter Gibbs, who tells us that Palmer has finished with the body that came in the night before. We assume he’s talking about Hotshot.

Gibbs heads down to Ducky’s Digs to talk to Palmer, and lo and behold, who else is in Ducky’s Digs? Ducky! Yay!! Gibbs is as thrilled as I am. Turns out Ducky’s university is on spring break, so he came back home to take care of “one of life’s two certainties.” Taxes. Palmer chimes in that he invited Ducky in to deal with the first. Death. We learn that Hotshot was 23, passed his recent physical with flying colors, his heart doesn’t appear damaged. So what caused it to fail? They didn’t find any obvious foul play, but Palmer sent blood samples and stomach contents up to Abby. Gibbs invites Ducky over for some bourbon before he heads back, Ducky counters with an offer of scotch. Heh.

In Abby Lab, no one is surprised that it’s not Gibbs coming in to see Abby, as he hasn’t done a face-to-face scene with her all season. Heck, we haven’t even gotten one via on-screen since the early days of season 15. (What gives, Show?) Instead, it’s McGee, and Abby has plenty to share. We learn that Hotshot suffered death-by-cookie. (Say it ain’t so!) Well, with a little cyanide mixed in with the almonds and the frosting. There is nothing like this cookie anywhere on base, so they turn to Hotshot’s personal effects. Turns out Hotshot got a care package from someone in Virginia that contained the poisonous cookies, but there was no trace of anyone else’s DNA on any part of the packaging or items found inside. McGee notes two photographs in sealed evidence bags and asks who the Marine is in the photos. (Hello, Drew Carey!) One photo shows him in uniform as a retired Marine, but the other … who knew Drew was such a hottie? Very James Dean. (Don’t even @ me asking who that is. Look it up, youngsters.)

Sean Murray as McGee in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

We move to what looks like a gymnasium with Retired Marine Drew heading up a drive where other vets are putting together care packages for men and women still serving overseas. Apparently, one of the “special touches” they each provide is something home-baked and photos of themselves, then and now. We see Ret. Marine Drew loading up containers of almond cookies. Ruh roh. Enter McGee and Torres, who ask to speak to RMD, who is happy to talk to them. They tell him he has to come with them, that one of his care packages killed a sailor. Fade to a serious-faced Torres black-and-white.

Back in the Bull Pen, the team is bringing Gibbs up to speed on RMD. They have him down in interrogation, but before heading down there to question him, Gibbs notices one of the medals on the front of RMD’s uniform is a prisoner-of-war medal. We learn he was held for five years when the U.S. Embassy in Iran was attacked. He was a Marine security guard.

In interrogation, Sloane is watching through the two-way as Gibbs enters to talk to RMD. RMD walks over, shakes Gibbs’ hand and tells him he didn’t kill anybody. They sit down. Gibbs walks him through the various questions, and eventually what happened to Hotshot comes out. RMD is stunned and can’t figure out how any poison got in his care package. He makes the cookies using his mother’s recipe. All the vets pack their own boxes and he swears none of them would do anything like that. Gibbs calmly, kindly, says he knows what RMD has been through, and RMD immediately gets agitated, stands up, starts pacing and says he has to get out of that room. He repeats that several times, growing more agitated.

In Vance’s office, he talks to Sloane about her take. She says she can’t be sure if RMD is telling the truth or not. Digging into his past, we learn that he’s had some incidents in the years since his rescue, outbursts including a bar fight and a road-rage incident. He’s had a hard time holding jobs. Vance holds Sloane’s gaze and says that sounds familiar. Sloane’s expression firms up and she comments, rather pointedly, that they didn’t have the same psychiatric help back then that they do now. SO! Did we just learn that Sloan was a POW? Hmm! Sloane wants to meet with RMD in a setting where he feels comfortable, to get a better read on him. Vance easily agrees, but reminds her that they’ve put a hold on all care packages being sent to sailors and soldiers overseas, so the sooner they can close the case the better.

Reeves and Bishop visit Hotshot’s widow at her home, where there appears to be a gathering in honor of Hotshot. She tells Reeves and Bishop that the two were high school sweethearts and hoping to try for their first child when Hotshot got home. No known enemies. A fracas in the other room draws her, Reeves and Bishop to the main room. It’s Hotshot’s drunk uncle. We learn that Hotshot’s parents died in a car crash six years ago and left everything to Hotshot and his brother. Uncle got nothing. He gets all finger-pointy at the widow, saying she was only wanting Hotshot after he came into money. She tells him to get out. Hotshot’s brother also tells Drunk Uncle to get out. Reeves helps to expedite that. Drunk Uncle admits to being drunk, but claims he’s right about the widow. Reeves shows him out, and Hotshot’s brother tells Bishop and Reeves that Drunk Uncle is just angry because he got nothing.

Mark Harmon as Gibbs and guest star Drew Carey as John Ross in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

Meanwhile, McGee and Torres are visiting the post office where the package was sent from. McGee thinks he has a hilarious IRS story to tell, but Torres nips that in the bud. The postal worker inside the building waves her hands and says, “Oh, we’re closed.” Torres imitates her hand wave and says, “Oh, we’re federal agents,” while showing his badge. Heh. Postal Worker says RMD ships all of his packages out from that location and usually waits for her to be the one to wait on him. She thinks he has a crush on her and seems charmed by it. They talk about her husband and kids, and she tells them RMD gives her leftover cookies to take to the kids. Torres tells her they might not want to eat that last batch. (No, what you meant to say was, “Call your house immediately and make sure no one eats a cookie from that last batch.” Are they kidding with that? Like, just shrug that off?) Anyway, they give her a photo of the scan code from Hotshot’s package, wanting to see where all the package went after leaving that building. The scans shows an unusual thing where the package got picked up from a blue drop box not far from her location. Which is odd since RMD brings all of his packages in to her.

We jump over to Vance and Gibbs talking to a Marine from Hotshot’s base, via screen up in MTAC. Petty Officer says he knows who RMD is, that everyone on base does, calls him Santa Claus for sailors. He says he doesn’t think Hotshot ever spoke to RMD, then asks if they’ll be getting their packages again, saying how morale is low since Hotshot’s death. Vance says he’s working on it. Enter McGee, who tells Vance and Gibbs about the package being dropped at a mailbox instead of the post office, saying that RMD never did that. They tracked the time line, and it turns out that RMD was in Chicago at a veteran’s reunion the day the package shipped out. So it wasn’t him. Vance comments that someone sure wanted it to look like it was from RMD. Fade to a concerned Gibbs black-and-white.

In the Bull Pen, an aggravated Torres is trying to get through to a person at the IRS. No luck there. Enter Gibbs, who is looking for some connection between the care packages, Hotshot and RMD. No cameras anywhere near the mailbox used to send the package, so no way to pin down the person there. Bishop has found something, though. A guy with a radio show spinning wild theories had RMD on, ostensibly to talk about the care package program he started, but it quickly devolved into a conspiracy theory rant about how RMD wasn’t actually a POW, that it was a ploy for the government to ramp up sympathy for the military and that the government is paying for the care packages as a way to shore up the failing USPS. RMD says he doesn’t have to prove anything and remains silent while jerk radio guy goes on about his POW stint being fake. RMD gets up, says Jerk Radio Guy will pay for what he’s said and walks out. Jerk Radio Guy goes on to lay out this whole story about how RMD has had a checkered past and is actually a hired government thug and promises a “big story” to come. Gibbs is skeptical that the poison cookies are at the root of the “big story.”

We’re at what appears to be RMD’s place, or his office, not sure. It’s dimly lit and you can hear a train chugging by outside. RMD is upbeat, happy to talk to Sloane. Apparently, the conversation began before we tuned in, as RMD hands Sloane a cup of coffee and asks if Jerk Radio Host was the one to kill Hotshot. Sloane says she didn’t say that, but RMD counters that she wouldn’t have brought Jerk up if it wasn’t a possibility. RMD said it wouldn’t surprise him, given how much Jerk hates the military and how he came after RMD personally. Sloane counters that there is nothing that Jerk could say that would be worse than spending five years in a cage. Wow, so that was direct, even if offered sympathetically. Are we trying to see if she can trigger RMD? RMD merely nods, says she is right, and that it’s not his favorite subject.

Sloane notices a bunch of old black-and-white photos strewn across his computer and asks what they’re all about. RMD happily tells her that he’s scanning in old genealogy photos so they don’t get lost. He tells her how one of his great-great-a-lot-of-great-relatives was named after George Washington at the request of George himself. He says his family has been fighting for our country since our country was born. He asks Sloane where she served, and she asks him how he knew she served. He smiles and says she referred to liking her coffee battery-acid-black, then smiles and shrugs. She laughs, tells him she served in Afghanistan. He nods, says that’s a tough part of the world for a woman. She counters that it’s a tough place for anybody. RMD tells Sloane that researching his history helps him, seeing how hard they worked to have what they had. Sloane nods, says they paved the way for the rest of us. Sloan notices the framed medal that sits on his desk several times during their conversation. I’d have to go back to compare it to that first photo where Gibbs noticed it, but my assumption is the medal is RMD’s prisoner-of-war medal.

Unfortunately, we move back to Jerk Radio Guy, who is regaling his audience with how he knows the IRS is just a scam run by computers. Enter Torres and Reeves, who ask Jerk if he knows Hotshot. Jerk quickly earns a name, along with a few more adjectives I can’t use on a family-friendly blog, but bottom line is, he doesn’t know Hotshot. Let’s hope that’s the last we hear from him, unless it’s to see him get knocked down all-the-pegs.

In the conference room at HQ, Bishop and Gibbs are talking to Widow, asking about the house, the inheritance. They comment on how the inheritance was only $150K and the house was more than four times that. They wonder if maybe Hotshot stashed some of his inheritance? She says they took out a mortgage, but realizes they believe she might have done it, gets annoyed and ends the interview. Downstairs, McGee, Vance and Torres turn on the big screen to watch how Jerk has turned his visit from NCIS into a story about how he’s being framed for Hotshot’s murder. Only Jerk goes too far and mentions RMD and the poison cookies, which Reeves and Torres didn’t mention, and Jerk couldn’t have found out about them unless he had personal knowledge. Fade to a consternated Vance black-and-white.

Guest star Jaymes Butler as Tom Moore, Wilmer Valderrama as Torres and Duane Henry as Reeves in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

We see Jerk finishing up his meal in a restaurant as RMD approaches and starts a fist fight. NCIS enters and breaks things up, but not before Jerk takes all the photos and starts a video complete with trash talk, to feed to his conspiracy-addicted fans. Gibbs cuts that off, snatching Jerk’s phone away, then snatching Jerk by the arm to haul him downtown where he can talk all he wants. Let’s hope that’s not the last of Gibbs losing his temper where Jerk is concerned.

In interrogation, Jerk is rolling on his whole “the IRS is a big Ponzi scheme” spiel, ignoring McGee’s questions about how he knew about the poison. Jerk, who looks like a really tanned, really young, only slightly less deranged Gary Busey, with huge, blinding-white teeth, grows cockier by the second, wants to know if “Gary Cooper,” aka Gibbs, has any questions. McGee is done, gets up and leaves, and Gibbs takes his place. Please, please make this enjoyable for us, Gibbs. Gibbs asks him how he looks in the mirror every morning, and Smug Jerk is all, “With my eyes.” Then Gibbs calmly asks him what Layla thinks about all this. And suddenly Jerk isn’t so smug. He doesn’t want Gibbs talking about his daughter. Gibbs ponders aloud what school must be like for a daughter who has a dad like him. Jerk is all, “Family is a line you do not cross,” forbidding Gibbs to talk about his daughter. Gibbs counters that Jerk has crossed that line plenty, then keeps right on, asking Jerk how his daughter will feel when she hears her father is a murderer. Jerk laughs and says he’s just an entertainer. He knows that most of the stuff he says isn’t true, but he didn’t put the RMD thing out there, it’s all over the Internet. Gibbs says that Jerk claimed on air that he was going to expose RMD. Jerk smiles and nods and says he was just going to make something up. Like, that’s OK, right? If folks believe him, that’s on them? Gibbs says Jerk put the info out there, and his fans ran with it. Jerk says his fans are ravenous and they were the ones who started it, he just repeated it because he has the biggest voice. Gibbs just smiles, nods. So we know Jerk is toast. Please, let him be toast.

Sloane is up in her office, deep in thought, then enters Ducky (who calls her Jacquelyn, which I love about him). She thanks him for coming. He says he could struggle with tax forms for only so long. Sloane wants Ducky’s help with profiling. Specifically, RMD. Ducky goes down a list of issues, from signs of anger to not seeking help, and Sloane confirms that RMD has all of those. (Or is she talking about herself? We don’t know.) She asks Ducky what happens if the subject keeps internalizing everything, and Ducky says that’s the road to disaster. Sloane smiles, but her eyes are sad, and says that’s what she thought. Ducky says she must use all of her tricks and get RMD to open up. She stands and thanks Ducky for his observations. We know this is about RMD, but we also know this is about her. Ducky peers into Sloane’s lollipop jar. She tells him to help himself. He asks if he might have one of each flavor. HA. She smiles, says, “Absolutely.” Oh, Ducky! (Will we ever learn what traits Sloane attributes to the colors people choose?)

Back in interrogation, Gibbs is letting Jerk run his mouth, then he gets up and leaves. On the other side of the glass, Vance tells Torres that Gibbs is letting Jerk stew, that he has Jerk right where he wants him. Torres wants to be there when Gibbs breaks him. So does Vance. (Also, so does all of America right now.) Vance tells Torres that years back, an up-and-coming shock jock accused Vance of running a money-laundering scheme out of the Navy Yard. Vance smiles and says that shock jock was Jerk. At that time, the claims were so outlandish that they never went anywhere, but clearly Jerk has gotten better at the game.

Upstairs, Gibbs implores his team to please give him something. Bishop and Reeves are going through Jerk’s phone, with the permission of Jerk’s lawyer. Nothing incriminating pops on Jerk’s phone, and Bishop confirms that the info about the poison and RMD being involved in the murder was indeed on the Internet before Jerk announced it on the air. They are trying to trace it back to the first source, but it is so widespread, they are having a hard time pinning it down. An increasingly frustrated Gibbs implores them to work harder.

Sloane and RMD are talking at his place. She asks him why he went after Jerk. RMD smiles, says, well, he was saying, “I murdered a Marine.” She smiles, says how he has a history of aggression, so it’s not like it’s a secret. She says he sees a lot of anger behind his smiles, and he counters asking what she knows about that. She pauses, then tells him it happened to her, too. (Backstory!) She was held for nine months, never talked, though she says she screamed a bit. RMD leans forward, is instantly contrite, tells her he’s sorry. She says they moved her around a lot, so she didn’t know where she was, or for how long, and asks if it was like that for him. He says his anger doesn’t stem from what happened to him overseas, saying he’s dealt with that. What he hasn’t come to terms with is the life it took away from him back at home. She asks him to explain. He says he had a girlfriend when he went to Iran, more than a girlfriend. She wrote after he’d been overseas a few weeks to tell him she was pregnant. He was excited, planned to propose to her the moment he got home. Then he was taken captive.

After two rescue attempts didn’t work, and the captors cut off all communication, everyone assumed he was dead. His girlfriend moved on, married and RMD’s daughter had a father who she believed was her own. RMD made his former girlfriend promise to never tell her daughter the truth, believing that to be the right thing. He knew he was in no shape to be a dad, so it was the best for everyone. Except him, of course. Sloane asks about his ex and her husband, where they are now. Turns out they both passed away, but he never stepped in. Sloane queries if maybe he should, that he has all that family history to share. He says family is who is there for you and he was never there for her, it wouldn’t be right. He feels she’d reject him, maybe even hate him, that it’s too late. He’s sad about it, but convinced it’s the right way to handle it. Fade to a sad and unsure Sloane black-and-white.

Down in Abby Lab, the entire team is trying to track down the earliest social media post containing the info on Hotshot’s murder. Except for Torres who has victoriously discovered the document the IRS is requesting, but hasn’t been doing his actual job so much. His teammates are suddenly not so sorry the IRS wants a piece of him. Heh. Suddenly Abby gets a hit and discovers the original post that everyone else was copying and posting all over social media. They have a username and site.

We move to the Bull Pen where they share that info with Gibbs. Well, by “they,” I mean the team, sans Abby. Because Abby and Gibbs don’t do scenes together anymore. SAD. The poster account was a dummy account, but they tracked the post back to the location it was sent from … and it’s the legion hall where RMD and the other vets box up all the care packages. Sloane and RMD were talking at his place when the post was uploaded, so it wasn’t RMD posting it. (And why would he frame himself anyway?) The legion hall has surveillance on all their computers. Reeves and Torres are headed there now.

In Sloane’s office, she’s sitting in a padded armchair in the corner of her office, not behind her desk, deep in thought once again. Enter Vance. He sees her, looks concerned. Sloane doesn’t look up. She looks beyond weary. She tells Vance that she told RMD what happened to her. Vance pulls up a chair, sits across from her and quietly says he knows that’s a very difficult thing for her to talk about. She tells Vance about RMD having a daughter who doesn’t know he’s her dad, and how he’s grappling with the experience after his release, not the experience itself. Vance is quiet, then asks Sloane what about RMD’s situation scares Sloane. She says seeing what it’s done to him, his anger, his loneliness. Vance tells her she’s not RMD and she stands up, paces, reels off RMD’s anger incidents, and how she was ordered to six months of anger management. Vance stands, too, tells her that was a long time ago. She says, yeah, she’s gotten real good at looking pretty and like everything is OK.

Vance steps closer, but she brushes him back, surprising him, but making him more concerned, rather than angry or annoyed. Vance says he knows that it takes a long time to get past what happened to her. She starts to come apart, telling him it’s not about getting hooked to a car battery, it’s not about emotions she can just get over, or a problem that can be solved. Her voice is choked with tears and anger. Vance makes no move toward her, though he looks like he wants to. He is there, listening as she brokenly tells him she should have “saved them.” Vance tells her firmly that she did not kill them. She nods, tearful, agreeing, but says she let them die, didn’t she? Then she finally steps forward, and Vance holds her while she shakes and falls apart, and suddenly, my screen is all blurry.

At the legion hall, we get to see footage of the time when the post was put online. Aaaand, hello, Hotshot’s brother. And oh! Hello also, Widow. Who is quite chummy with Brother. And by chummy, I mean quite probably in the conjugal sense. Exit Sloane and Reeves, and next we see, the doorbell rings on the house-the-inheritance-couldn’t-have-bought and there’s Bro and Widow, all chummy in the kitchen. She answers the door. Bishop and Gibbs ask to see Brother. She’s all, Why do you think he’s here, and they’re all, Cameras at the legion hall. She doesn’t attempt to lie her way out of that one and calls to Brother that NCIS is there. He immediately gets a gun from a drawer in the kitchen. Oh, Brother. Gibbs ordering him to drop the gun does get that result, then Brother compounds his stupidity by running. Reeves takes him down in the street. Like the sibling-killing dog that he is.

Me, I was hoping for more Jerk take-down action, but at least we’ve caught the killer. Back at HQ, we learn that Brother and Widow hooked up after Hotshot was deployed. She wanted out of the marriage for a while. They decided to kill Hotshot and post the item to frame RDM to help boost Brother’s hero, Jerk, killing all the birds with one box of cookies. Gah. Enter a cha-cha-ing Torres, who is very tickled about something. Turns out the IRS screwed up and they owe him money. He says the only thing that could make the day complete would be if they could somehow arrest Jerk Radio Guy. Oh, please, make it so!

Enter Sloane, who is still looking a little frayed around the edges. Well, she’s coming down the stairs and heads off the other direction. Gibbs gets up and follows as Bishop tells an even more gleeful Torres and, now me, that sponsors are exiting Jerk’s show in droves. Apparently, they draw the line at him encouraging murder.

Guest star Drew Carey as John Ross and Maria Bello as Sloane in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Gibbs asks Sloane if she’s OK. She pauses, then smiles and says she’s perfect. Aw. Then she tells Gibbs that RMD is living a life alone, with a daughter he can’t or won’t reach out to. Sloane says she thinks RMD knows exactly where she is. McGee overhears and asks them how old the daughter would be. Then we shift back to the post office and BINGO. Aw. She’s the postal clerk. That’s very cool. RMD and Sloane sit outside in her Mini Cooper (nice choice, says the recapper, who might drive something exactly like that) as he dithers a bit, wanting to tell her, worrying it might not be a good thing for her. Sloane boosts his morale, tells him he’s a good man and she’ll see that. RMD tells Sloane that she’s the first person he’s talked to about what happened to him. She pauses, and then, her voice a bit thicker, tells him she doesn’t talk about her experience either. He tells her it was hard, but it helped him, knowing she understood. She nods, he chokes back a few tears, looks at an old photo of him and his girlfriend, and says maybe he was able to help her, too.

Sloane dodges answering as she notices that RMD’s daughter is getting ready to leave the post office. RMD smiles, laughs nervously, and Sloane smiles, takes his hand, tells him he’s got this. He thanks her again and gets out to go do possibly the second-hardest thing he’s ever done. Sloane watches, apprehensively, as RMD approaches his daughter. She smiles, then we see him hand her the photo. Then she covers her face, cries. Sloane looks both worried and hopeful, then reaches for the glove compartment. She takes out the box we saw her retrieve from Afghanistan earlier this season. She opens it, takes out a patch that says WINGOS on it, then another, then one more. Then, suddenly disgusted, she shoves them back in the box, puts the lid back on and shoves it back in the glove box.

We end with a fraught-looking Sloane black-and-white.

Good episode. Wonderful job by Drew, great backstory advancement for Sloane, a Ducky reunion and even Jerk got a little bit of what is due to him.

What say you, NCIS fans?

What I say is it’s time to give away a little swag. Thanks for all the entries and the comments on the show, the recap, et al. Our winner of a signed copy of my latest book, Blue Hollow Falls, along with the recent tide-me-over novella for the same series, The Inn at Blue Hollow Falls, is RK Plumber! RK, drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with an address and we’ll get your prizes out to you!

While we’re waiting (OK, so I’m waiting, and really impatiently) for my next release, Bluestone & Vine, coming on June 26, let’s keep the fun going and put the same duo up for grabs this week. To enter, drop me a note to donna@donnakauffman.com with “It’s my turn for Blue Hollow Falls!” in the subject line. Include some dish about the show, the series, if you’re so inclined. I’m always interested to hear what you think.

See you back here next week for episode 17, One Man’s Trash.

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C. politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts

Dee Davis

This week’s episode of This Is Us, This Big, Amazing, Beautiful Life, opens in the near past with Randall telling Deja that “I’ve got this big, amazing, beautiful life, and if I’m seeing me in you and seeing you is giving me that sweet, sweet déjà vu feeling, I think that means it’s going to happen to you, too.”

Season two’s penultimate episode encapsulates perfectly the adventure we all are cast into at birth. And by simultaneously showing us vignettes from Deja’s past set against similar moments in the Pearsons’ lives, we can see how their life experiences will dovetail with Deja’s as she (and her mother) ultimately become a part of their family.

Deja’s story begins with a montage, backed by Siddhartha Khosla’s instrumental piece, The Mural (Clooney), that moves through four early stages of Deja’s life. Birth, bonding, early childhood and a seminal event that changes everything.

First, we see Shauna (Deja’s mother) at 16, giving birth to her daughter. Shauna’s grandmother, played by the marvelous Pam Grier, is there to help her, reminding Shauna that she was present when she was born as well. Against this birth scenem we see Rebecca and Jack as she delivers the twins, William and Randall’s mother as he is being born, and Beth and Randall as she delivers one of their daughters. The joy of the impending birth overtakes the fear of motherhood/fatherhood as each family brings new life into the world.

Lyric Ross as Deja in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Next, we see the grandmother, whom Deja calls Gigi, telling Shauna the importance of bonding with her baby. From there we cut to Beth and Randall as they hold their daughter, their faces full of joy, and Rebecca as she forms her own bond with baby Randall. Finally, we see an incredulous Shauna holding tiny Deja, the circle complete.

Older now, but still a small child, we cut to Deja alone in an apartment. Gigi arrives home from work, surprised to find that Deja is alone. But the bond between Gigi and Deja is soon apparent. Gigi gently chides 3-year-old Deja for taking her best brooch and pinning it on her stuffed bear, then crawls into bed with her to read her Goodnight Moon. As Gigi reads the story, we see Randall reading the same to his girls, Rebecca reading it to Kate, Kevin and Randall, and young Jack reading it to his brother, Nicky. The age-old tradition reaching across family lines.

As an aside, we also read my daughter Goodnight Moon every night. And so were both happily reciting it along with Randall, Rebecca, Jack and Gigi, their lives touching ours in an unforeseen way. And, yes, I texted my daughter.

Having seen the love in Deja’s life, from both her great-grandmother and her very young and inexperienced mother, we know that there must be a turning point. Something to send them down the path they are currently following. The final sequence in the opening montage signifies a loss that changes everything. Life isn’t about how we respond to the good times. It’s about how we rise to deal with the bad ones. And Deja and Shauna unfortunately are faced with an awful crisis early on.

Cut against a discussion between Gigi and a 19-year-old Shauna about the responsibility of having a child, we see Gigi collapsing in the hallway as the family comes home. Then the scene moves to Randall crying over William’s death, Rebecca suffering as she says goodbye to Jack, William distraught at the loss of Randall’s mother and Deja and Shauna grieving over losing Gigi. The montage ends with Deja reading Goodnight Moon to Shauna. In effect, Deja is becoming the mother in their relationship.

To symbolize this, we see Deja cooking a meal in their apartment alone. This is framed by scenes with Tess and Annie cooking with William, and Rebecca cooking with Kevin, Randall and Kate. These scenes aren’t meant so much to show us that Deja’s life is tough and the Pearsons’ easy. But rather that the lessons the Pearsons are learning will serve to help them as they strive to make Deja a part of their family. Commonality is the thing that bonds us initially — the parts of our lives that intersect, that make us allies or help us empathize.

Mandy Moore as Rebecca in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Moving forward in time, we see Deja and Shauna in a bonding moment on Shauna’s birthday. Deja tells Shauna she wants to fix her a special meal. Gigi’s jambalaya recipe. Unfortunately, Deja cuts her hand before Shauna gets home and has to seek medical help on her own. The visit to a clinic triggers a call to child services when doctors there can’t reach Shauna.

Linda, the social worker who is still part of Deja’s case, arrives just as Shauna does. Shauna explains that she’d gone out for drinks to celebrate her birthday and her phone died. She’s clearly horrified that Deja was hurt and apologetic. But it is too late, the system has been triggered. Linda takes Deja to her office for the night as she tries to find a foster placement for her.

Although it occurs off screen, we realize that this is a turning point for Shauna. And she has trouble coping with the loss of her daughter, creating a downward spiral from which she struggles to recover.

In the foster home, Deja makes a new friend in Raven, a girl of similar age who has been in the system much longer. She warns Deja that their foster dad is dangerous when drunk, but then goes on to charm Deja into stealing makeup from a nearby bodega. Deja has her first view of unbridled anger when the owner of the bodega shows up to confront them and afterward, their foster dad shoves Raven, then moves to strike Deja. Raven intervenes and takes the hit.

Set against this, we again see things about the Pearsons that will give them insight into Deja’s struggles. We see Jack’s dad hitting him while Nicky stands in the background. Jack taking the hit for his brother much the way Raven did for Deja. We see Jack hitting Ben. Anger winning out over even a good man under bad circumstances and the reflection of his life’s experience.

When Linda visits shortly thereafter, Deja tells her she wants to go home. But Linda explains that her mom isn’t ready. She’s been in and out of rehab facilities and just can’t handle a child at the moment. Linda then asks if everything is OK. Deja hesitates, but then tells her that the foster father hits them.

Debra Jo Rupp as Linda in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Linda takes both girls out of the home, and they wind up in a shelter. Raven, to Deja’s surprise, is not pleased. She tells Deja that she can’t even count the number of beds she’s stayed in. And that at least their foster father only hit. Plus, they had each other. Now she knows they’ll be separated.

Deja actually winds up going home. And she and her mom are reunited in love and with the hope of a better start. In reflection of that mother/daughter bonding moment, we see Kate as she reaches out to Rebecca after losing her baby. Sometimes there just isn’t anything that will do but your mom, no matter the relationship, the need for that motherly comfort overriding all.

Once home, though, Deja realizes that it isn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped. Her mom has brought home a friend, as well. A man she met in rehab, Alonzo. At first Deja is skeptical, but then finds him to be funny, and slowly he becomes a part of their life.

But quickly things start to turn sour. Alonzo is home during the day while Shauna works, and the pressure causes the two of them to argue. Alonzo has questionable friends over and keeps a gun at the house. Deja becomes so stressed her hair starts to fall out. And to reflect this, we see scenes with both Jack and Kevin drinking — stress taking a dangerous toll in their lives.

Though Alonzo seems to still be trying with Deja, the “family” is falling apart. Finally, while Deja is at drill-team practice, the police arrive. And soon Linda follows. Shauna was arrested when police found a gun in her car (Alonzo’s). Deja must go back into the system.

We have now joined our previous story. Linda takes Deja to Randall and Beth’s for that first time. And as Hannah Miller sings a haunting cover of Greensky Bluegrass’s Beauty and Pain, we see a montage of Deja’s initial time with the Pearsons.

Faithe Herman as Annie, Eris Baker as Tess and Lyric Ross as Deja in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

The lyrics of the song echo the sentiment of the episode and perhaps the entire series. “Please take the words to carry away. There’s others in need of a song. We all bury our fathers before we would like, but there’s time left to make right today.”

As Deja settles in that first night at the Pearsons, with Annie and Tess, she remembers Raven at the shelter, telling her that the “next time you find a bed that feels even a little safe — don’t blow it.”

Finally, released from prison, Shauna tells Deja that she’s going to get it right this time. They work together, saving money in a box that Deja made for them at school. But money is tight, and when Deja realizes that they don’t have enough to pay their bills, she goes to Randall and Beth, not knowing where else to turn.

She puts the cash in the box, but when checks start bouncing and the landlord threatens eviction, she realizes the cash is gone. She confronts Shauna, and her mother admits that she gave it to Alonzo for bail money. She figures it’s her fault he is in jail for gun possession. Deja is upset and scared. And frankly, wise beyond her years. And so she calls Randall, but gets only a message.

After gathering stuff from her room, she goes to a pawn shop to try to get enough money for the rent. The woman there tells her they are not Goodwill, her things are worth nothing. For a moment, Deja thinks about selling her great-grandmother’s brooch, the same one that she once pinned on her bear. The scene is cut with views of Kevin, first receiving Jack’s medallion in the hospital and then holding it for strength as he spirals out of control with his drinking. A talisman can mean everything. Something that links us to a person we loved or a moment in time when we were strong. Both the medallion and the brooch have served Kevin and Deja well.

Lyric Ross as Deja and Sterling K. Brown as Randall in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Set against Jono McCleery’s Darkest Light, Deja puts the brooch back in her backpack, not willing to sacrifice the connection to Gigi. As she does so, her phone rings. Randall is calling her back. And although she lies to him about things being OK, both he and Beth will ultimately choose not to believe her. In the meantime, though, Deja packs up some of their things just before they are thrown out of their apartment. She and Shauna have been reduced to sleeping in their car.

We see from their perspective the moment when Randall and Beth arrive at the car.

In the next scene, we see Shauna and Deja arriving at the Pearsons. Deja is greeted with delight by Annie and Tess and welcomed back into the family like a lost sheep. Shauna, too, is welcomed, and as they have dinner and settle in to games and TV, Shauna relishes her daughter’s joy.

Later as they’re making up the sofa for them to sleep, Deja asks Beth if she can sleep in her old room. Beth looks to Shauna for permission. Deja is delighted when she approves, but is short with her mother as she leaves to go upstairs. Left alone, Beth and Shauna make small talk, the two of them actually finding places of commonality. Shauna, clearly struggling with her emotions, tells Beth that she’s never seen Deja acting like she did tonight. When Beth asks what she means, Shauna says, “Like a kid.” Shauna then tells Beth that even though she knows a mother is biased, she believes Deja is special. Beth agrees.

Then, still fighting her own demons, Shauna admits that she failed Deja. That she’s always depended on her daughter instead of it being the other way around. “Who puts that on a kid?” she asks.

Eris Baker as Tess and Faithe Herman as Annie in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Upstairs, Randall checks on Deja. They have a moment when Deja sees that they kept her plants alive (from her science project), and Randall spouts corny jokes about it. When Randall asks what she’s thinking about, she replies, “How many beds I’ve slept in already in my whole life and it’s a scary thing because the number is pretty high.” She then goes on to say, “You remember a while ago you told me I reminded you of you? Well, you seem so different from me, but then I started thinking, isn’t it weird how everyone goes to sleep at night? All of them different, but everyone sleeps. Everyone has things that hurt them, that make them feel better.”

She sighs. And tells Randall she’s tired. Really tired. Randall hugs her and leaves her to sleep. Then as he’s coming downstairs he sees that Shauna is leaving. “I gotta go,” she says. “And I can’t take her with me.”

The ultimate sacrifice of a parent. So much like William all those years ago. Recognizing that your child needs so much more than you’re able to give. Shauna’s faced with an impossible choice. And she rises to the occasion. She becomes the mother — not the child.

I hope we see her again.

Next week is the season two finale. Kate and Toby’s wedding.

See you then!

When not sitting at the computer writing, bestselling author Dee Davis spends her time exploring Connecticut with her husband and Cardigan Welsh Corgis. Known for her romantic suspense and time-travel novels, her latest book is Fade to Gray. Visit her at www.deedavis.com.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Dee’s posts

Heidi Cullinan

We left Lucifer last week vowing not to help Pierce any longer because he wouldn’t put Chloe in any more danger, and defying his father by undoing Pierce’s curse was a surefire way to anger him and inspire retribution that could include hurting her. This week we begin with Lucifer worrying that he might have already triggered that wrath, and he’s determined to keep the detective safe.

We also begin with a popular singer/performer, Axara, getting ready and then going onstage at a local club. Or rather, we think it’s her, but when the woman dancing in the mask gets killed by a rogue firework, Axara comes out and reveals she’s switched places with her backup dancer at the last minute without telling anyone.

Pierce is a bit blue now that he’s immortal without hope again, and Ella is here to cheer him up with a comment box filled with compliments for him gathered from the staff. Unfortunately, all the comments say he has great arms, so she starts riffing as she pulls out the comments, which he realizes right away. She sends Dan in instead, who is reluctant at first, but eventually picks up the challenge.

Lauren German as Chloe and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Chloe and Lucifer go to the scene of Axara’s show and her backup dancer’s murder, and Lucifer realizes that just as Axara is in danger from the would-be assassin as long as she’s in the spotlight, Chloe is in danger as long as she’s in Lucifer’s spotlight. He’s scheming now to get her out of his danger spotlight. They get a list of potential crazed fans from Axara’s assistant, and they also focus on Patrick, a backup dancer with a grudge.

While they’re focusing on the case, Linda brings a gift-wrapped ax to Maze so they can literally bury the hatchet over Amenadiel, but Maze won’t even answer the door. It doesn’t look like their relationship will smooth out so easily.

Patrick has been brought into the station, along with his lawyer, Donovan. Both of them are in drag — and quite nice drag, I might add. Patrick insists he wasn’t fired, he quit, and when Lucifer whammies him, Patrick says he wants to be Axara, and for that to happen, he needs her alive because that’s the only way he’ll ever surpass her. Patrick also has an alibi for the night of the attack — he was performing.

Ella has combed through Axara’s social media accounts, and her fans are so rabid there are too many suspects to ever chase down. Lucifer also chooses this moment to give Ella a random gift, a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by Chloe. He then also declares himself a fan of Axara, which Chloe finds suspicious because he’s never so much as mentioned her before. He says he “loves all her stuff” in a vague way that sounds suspicious as hell, pardon the pun.

It turns out Axara held a contest for her fans, and the winner does seem pretty intense, so Chloe and Lucifer go to check him out. On the way, Lucifer checks in with his “new friend” at the precinct, and Chloe calls him out on his distancing gestures, saying she knows he’s scared because of the bomb, and she gets if this is what he needs to do to process it. Lucifer of course denies this is what he’s doing, that he’s just spreading the Lucifer love.

When they go to interrogate the suspect, however, they discover he’s already dead in an apparent suicide, which is a convenient confession of the murder of the assistant. Chloe thinks it’s a bit too convenient. While they’re at the precinct waiting for the autopsy report, Lucifer shows up with Axara swag for everyone … but Chloe. She’s starting to lose her patience. Especially when she finds out Axara plans to still hold her show despite the LAPD’s warning not to.

Charlotte, meanwhile, has come for a therapy session with Linda, but Linda is uncharacteristically distracted. Charlotte offers to mediate between her and Maze, since that’s part of her job and since she needs to learn to be more focused on others. Linda says no at first but eventually relents.

The autopsy reports come back and reveal the suicide was staged the day before Axara’s attack, which means Axara is still in danger. (Before they can go and tell her, Lucifer bestows an employee-of-the-month award on a very confused temp.)

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Dan has been hard at work trying to cheer up Pierce, taking him to a bar and encouraging him to talk things out, but knowing Pierce doesn’t much care for him, he introduces him to the person who helped him: Amenadiel. When it’s clear Pierce and Amenadiel already know each other and don’t care for one another, Dan beats it out of there and leaves them alone to do whatever it is they’re going to do.

Axara refuses to cancel her show, but while Chloe and Lucifer are trying to convince her, shots are fired at her, and Chloe dives on top of her to protect her. Alarmed, Lucifer dives on top of her and chastises her for putting herself in danger. Both Chloe and Axara turn out to be OK, but Lucifer still focuses all his attention on Axara, and when Chloe insists she needs to cancel her show and accept police protection, Lucifer insists on doing it instead of Chloe. Chloe agrees because it’s an unpredictable choice, but she’s dubious at best that this is a good idea.

Lucifer isn’t wild when she rehearses on his custom leather furniture, and they don’t exactly get along. Chloe, meanwhile, interrogates the manager, whose gun it turns out is the one that was used to shoot at Axara while Chloe and Lucifer were talking to her. He’s also taken out an insurance policy on her. He denies attacking her, but Chloe arrests him anyway.

Charlotte heads up the mediation session between Maze and Linda, which doesn’t go well, to put it mildly. Maze is combative, and though Linda is initially patient, when Maze continues to be angry and unforgiving, refusing to offer anything she needs to apologize for, Linda unplugs as well. “You called dibs,” she says and points out Maze has slept with half of L.A. but wouldn’t let Linda have the one man she cared about or forgive her when she gave him up. Maze still won’t forgive her, and Linda walks out.

Axara’s show in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Meanwhile at the penthouse, Axara tries to lure Lucifer into bed, but Lucifer isn’t interested in sex because — and this may be a first — he’s not in the mood. She figures out he’s trying to avoid Chloe even though he obviously likes her, and he explains the whole thing with his dad, that he’s afraid of retribution for the things he cares about. She advises him not to let anyone come between the things or people he’s passionate about in this life. She also says she could use a drink, but when he comes back with one, she’s gone.

As Lucifer hunts down Axara, Chloe and Ella find out the suicide victim was likely fed his pills via a smoothie, the same one Axara drinks. Chloe doesn’t think the manager is the killer any longer.

Amenadiel berates Pierce, saying he can’t let Pierce drag his brother into anything, but Pierce has already given up. He wants to know, though, how Amenadiel can stay so upbeat and hopeful even though he still doesn’t have his wings back or any obvious hope. Amenadiel says it’s faith, that it’s the journey, not the destination.

Axara appears at the piano, and Lucifer in his efforts to remove her ends up doing a duet to I Will Survive with her. Not to be missed, this one. Seriously, Romancelandia — we all know the week we’ve had. This scene will restore your soul.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer, Aimee Garcia as Ella and Lauren German as Chloe in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

The song ends, and Axara’s assistant appears, with a knife. It turns out she is the killer, that all the attacks were meant to shock Axara into slowing down or, better yet, quitting altogether. The assistant has been her best friend since high school and wants the old days back. She wants the Axara she knew, wants to own and protect that version. Lucifer realizes he’s not entirely unlike the assistant, that he’s trying to do the same thing with Chloe, though without murder. He, too, is trying to protect Chloe, but are his methods the right ones?

When the assistant lunges for Chloe, Lucifer tackles her and takes the knife in his shoulder. While Chloe fusses over him and nurtures him, Pierce and Amenadiel watch. Amenadiel points out that the devil himself just jumped in front of a knife and bled for a woman. “If that can happen …” Amenadiel trails off. Pierce nods, a fond expression on his face. “Maybe I can have that, too.”

Aimee Garcia as Ella in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

At the precinct, Pierce is upbeat again, and he goes straight to Chloe, congratulating her on her solve, and when he finds out she has VIP tickets, he invites himself to go along with her, making it clear it’s a date. Lucifer comes up immediately after, and when he tries to go along as her date for the tickets, too, she tells him, sorry, she figured he was still avoiding her, so she’s taking Pierce. Lucifer is shocked, to say the least.

We close the show out with Axara singing a bittersweet song and Lucifer watching as Pierce flirts with Chloe at her desk and Chloe clearly reciprocates his attentions. Lucifer is upset. Maze unwraps her gift ax, then breaks it in half.

Lucifer goes to Linda’s office, tears in his eyes. He looks like a wounded boy, and he says to her, “I think I made a horrible mistake.”

Yes, hon, you really did.

I feel like this episode was a long, slow roll toward that last line. That the entire setup was all so we could watch Lucifer’s sudden crystallization of growth, as he acknowledges and fully understands for the first time that not only does he have someone and something he wants to protect, but that he can lose her to more than just his father. That he wants her for himself, but he can’t simply possess her or treat her like an object. In so many ways, Lucifer is a child, and in this moment, he grows up significantly.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

I was thinking a lot during this episode what a powerful thing it is that Tom Ellis can portray an adult supernatural male with such a spoiled, childish attitude in such a sympathetic light. I have never once hated or wanted to turn away from Lucifer, and that’s truly marvelous. I suspect it’s because Ellis is tapping into parts of us we all wish we could access but feel we can’t, that id we’ve locked away and forgotten long ago. Childishness mixed with kindness and devotion, and he’s never cruel. He’s straightforward and filled with a sense of justice, truly.

Next week’s episode is called The Last Heartbreak, and from the previews alone I’m already nervous. I have faith in the writers, though, and I continue to captain the Deckerstar ship. Soon, I hope. Something’s got to happen this season, right?

Guess we’ll find out.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

We’re back after last week’s stellar outing. Can our band of merry very special agents top that this week? I know Ducky is still on board this week, so that’s a big help! Let’s find out!

Mark Harmon as Gibbs, Mike Wolfe of American Pickers as himself and Wilmer Valderrama as Torres in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

We open at Ducky’s college in New York City where he has an intern, assistant or something of that nature helping him in his office. She’s editing his manuscript and giving him a hard time about procrastinating by watching episodes of American Pickers. We see one of the hosts on the screen talking about a studded club, noting that one of the studs is missing, likely due to age or use. Ducky suddenly becomes very interested and calls Gibbs, who is also watching the show on the ancient TV in his basement. HA! Ducky wonders if it’s possible, and Gibbs asks him how fast he can get down to HQ.

We’re left assuming that studded club was used in an old cold case as we cue awesome opening theme song and credits!

Bishop, Torres and McGee are in the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness, lamenting over having just one working stapler. That one goes on the fritz, and we wonder if maybe the reason they have no functioning staplers is because Torres’ method of fixing it is to whack it against the side of McGee’s desk. The stapler is saved from total decimation by the entry of a very dapper Ducky (you look, mahvelous!) and the woman from the college who we learn is his graduate assistant. He tells the crew he hired her to keep him on task with his book. Turns out he has five chapters due to his publisher in less than a week. He thinks he’s doing just fine. His “emphatic” Grad Assistant disagrees. She’s concerned that Ducky’s chapter on unsolved cases will need a big rewrite if the “Flintstones thing” ends up solving an old case.

David McCallum as Ducky in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

McGee puts the “Flintstones thing,” aka the studded club, up on the Screen of All Knowing. Ducky tells us it’s a ceremonial Viking war stick that was adopted by an obscure 19^th-century fraternal organization. He pulled one of the wooden spikes from a dead sailor 16 years ago and could never trace it to a murder weapon. Enter Gibbs, who says, “Not till just now.” Emphatic Grad Assistant, who was able to name all of the agents prior to being introduced, we assume from her work on Ducky’s book, goes total fangirl over meeting Gibbs. And honestly, who wouldn’t? She gives him a huge, shall we say, emphatic hug, then shakes his hand. Gibbs smiles and is all, “Uh, OK,” then turns to the team. The owner of the war stick didn’t sell it to the reality-show hosts, so Gibbs takes Ducky and Bishop with him to go check it out.

We move to what looks like a series of old barns, all full of antiques and other stuff. Lots of other stuff. Bishop calls it junk, Ducky says it’s all in the perspective of the hunter. Bishop might agree when she spies an old, industrial-sized stapler. Gibbs spies a jar full of what looks like bullets? Maybe some kind of machine bits? The owner comes barging in, shotgun in hand. Gibbs asks her how much she wants for the bullet/drill bit. HA. She says she’ll take a buck for it, he tells her he’ll give her five. They show her their badges, and she apologizes for the shotgun, explaining that since the show aired, she’s been overrun with crazy collectors.

She tells that her husband convinced her to sell the stick to the reality-show hosts right after the show was filmed months earlier and is upset now because they’re getting much bigger offers. Ducky wants to know where she got it, in hopes that will help them track down the killer. She is stunned to learn they want it for a murder and tells them she bought it from a guy at a flea market 10 years back, but is uncertain about his name. Earl? Fred? She goes to look for the man’s card in a bucket of cards. From 10 years ago? Although, my desk drawer probably has business cards in it from longer ago than that. I retract my skepticism. Enter the husband, who moans about convincing her to tell the club for $3,000, which Ducky says is a good price. He just got an offer on the phone for $25,000, so yeah, he wishes he’d held on to it. When the caller heard it was sold, he got angry, cursed Husband out and hung up on him before Husband could get a name. Bishop and Ducky think that someone who got that mad might just know something. And we fade to a very dapper Gibbs black-and-white.

We come back to the Bull Pen with Sloane telling the gang that the war stick was essentially a symbol, or a totem, largely ceremonial, to the organization that had it. We learn they were called the Esteemed Order of the Blue Guard. Sloane compares them to the Knights of Columbus, the freemasons, the Rotary Club. McGee tosses in the International Order of the Loyal Raccoon and earns, well, the kind of looks you’d think that would. Sloane says for collectors, it’s not so much about the value of the piece itself, as it is about its value to the person who wants it. Enter Gibbs, who asks who would want it. Bishop says for that price, they must want it to get away with murder. The call to the Junk Owner and Husband was made from a burner phone, so more suspicious, and Junk Owner hasn’t found Earl’s card yet. They’ve put in a call to the reality-show hosts, but no return call yet.

Sloane asks about the murder, and we learn that a petty officer was found in a bad part of town, dead from blunt-force trauma to the head. They found the wooden spike embedded in his skull, but were never able to trace it to a murder weapon, or catch the killer. Dead Petty Officer’s girlfriend and best friend were the last to see him alive, but had no real motive to kill him. Torres wonders how the Blue Guard figures in, and Bishop says that the last member died in the sixties, but maybe it’s a descendant of one of the Guards. Gibbs tells them to keep digging.

Emily Wickersham as Bishop and Wilmer Valderrama as Torres in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Down in Ducky’s Digs (with Ducky in residence, yay!), they have unearthed the stud from the bowels of the evidence room, but they can’t be sure it’s from the same club until they have it in hand. Emphatic Grad Assistant has sort of taken over Palmer’s desk to keep working on Ducky’s manuscript, but he’s OK with that. Enter Abby, who is stoked to have another shot at solving the unsolved crime. She introduces herself to EGA, who is characteristically underwhelmed to meet this particular member of the NCIS team. Abby seems unfazed by this, and Ducky asks Abby if it’s OK if EGA stays at her place for a few days, now that they’re stuck in town solving the case. EGA is all, No, I’m good, and Abby is all, No, you’re staying with me. EGA is even more underwhelmed with that plan. She doesn’t appear to dislike Abby so much as just wanting to be invisible when Abby’s around. I’m sure we’ll find out what the deal is sooner than later.

Up in the Bull Pen, Torres is mocking Bishop’s ancient stapler until he hears the big thunk it makes when stapling. Then McGee tells them he’s heard back from the reality show. One of the hosts of American Pickers (real show, in case you were wondering) happens to be in the area, and he has the war stick.

We move to Gibbs, Bishop and Torres with Mike Wolfe (real host of the real show), who says he’s not willing to part with the war stick. He says it’s brought them good luck. When asked how, he explains that the stick was purported to have mystical powers, even before it was in the hands of the Blue Guard. He says he and his co-host have made some incredible finds since buying the war stick, and he’s not willing to “break up that mojo just yet.” Torres says he’ll have to, at least long enough for them to examine it. Wolfe takes a moment to have a solemn goodbye with the stick, seeing as how they have history together now. Um. OK. (Full disclosure: I don’t watch the show, so I have no idea if this is his schtick. With the stick. HA. I crack myself up.) Ahem. Enter Bishop, who has talked to Junk Owner. She found the card. Turns out the guy’s name is Roy. Wolfe knows him, says he worked his way from a junk collector to having his own antique shop in Northern Virginia. Gibbs smiles, shakes Wolfe’s hand, tells him he likes the show. Adorbs.

It’s dark by the time Bishop and McGee get to Roy’s place. It’s locked up, but the lights are still on inside. They go around back to find the back door open. Bishop goes inside to find Roy, but McGee beats her to it. He finds Roy, dead in the dumpster, with what looks like a very war stick-like injury to the head. Fade to a ruh-roh Bishop and McGee black-and-white.

Pauley Perrette as Abby and David McCallum as Ducky in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

We come back to see way too much detail of Roy’s head injury, then the blood-covered stick used to kill him. Looks like an old table leg or something. We’re processing the scene now, so the whole team is on hand. No security-cam footage out back and only a really dated one inside, no way to tell if anything has been taken. Torres finds Roy’s appointment book with a few familiar names in it. If one of them sold Roy the war stick, clearly they didn’t want him telling anyone about it.

It’s the following morning. In Ducky’s Digs, Jimmy is working on Roy, who was clobbered quite similarly to the war stick injury to the petty officer 16 years prior. Possibly a signature move. Ducky is examining the war stick. Enter Abby and EGA, who doesn’t seem all that freaked out to see a dead body on the table, especially one with a gaping head wound, or even marginally disturbed really, but OK. Ducky says the war stick is a match to the one used in the original murder. He suggests that EGA should work up in Abby Lab while Abby processes the war stick and the table leg that killed Roy, given Ducky’s Digs are going to be rather involved for the day. EGA seems way more freaked out about spending more time with Abby than she does the dead body, but he leads her on up while Abby stays behind to have a short chat with Palmer.

Abby asks Palmer about EGA and learns that she is very different with the rest of the crew than she is with Abby. Palmer says it could be any number of things and reels off a list that includes possibly being intimidated. Abby can’t conceive of that being the case, but says she’ll figure out what the deal is. But … intimidated? That has her flummoxed.

At the Screen of All Knowing, we are watching the dated security footage, which is a photo taken every 15 seconds or so. They see a customer, a man, with a gun drawn on Roy, but the staggered images show he puts it away and leaves. His appearance matches the last time in Roy’s appointment book, so Bishop and Torres head off to speak with the guy. They ask McGee to text them the address, despite him telling them last time that they don’t need to ask him that, of course he’s sending it. Bishop smiles. Gibbs tells him to send them the photo, too, as he ducks out. HA. McGee says yes to the boss, but barely refrains from rolling his eyes.

Gibbs and EGA both hit the elevator at the same time. She’s looking for Abby Lab and joins Gibbs in the elevator. She tells him she’s changing venues due to the imminent autopsy. “Not my thing.” Ha. He asks her if it’s her first dead body. She says no, she’s seen one before. (Well, that explains that.) She doesn’t explain, then says it’s a long story and she was told not to waste his time. He asked her who told her that. “Everybody.” HA. The door opens, and he walks on out. EGA turns to the now empty space and says it was the same everybody who told her he sometimes leaves without saying goodbye. HA squared.

Brian Dietzen as Palmer, guest star Diona Reasonover as Kasie Hines and Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Bishop and Torres meet up with Roy’s last customer. He’s a high-roller financier with a fancy office and lots of other collectibles under glass and displayed around. Turns out the gun was one he purchased that day, supposedly owned by George Patton. He puts it in the display case. He is surprised, of course, about Roy’s death, but it seems sincere. They show him a photo of the war stick. He knows nothing about it, says it would be worthless to him unless it was a movie prop or something special. Torres is happy to find someone who thinks it’s just an ugly chunk of wood, like he does. Financial Wiz gives them his business card, which is titanium coated. Insert eye roll. He offers to help if they need anything.

In Abby Lab, she and Sloane are saying how, as lucky totems go, they wouldn’t choose the ugly war stick. Abby is waiting on test results on the stick, so no conclusion yet. EGA speaks up and asks a question of Sloane, whom she is perfectly comfortable with. Abby takes heart at this sign of life and encourages EGA to ask anything. Turns out EGA had some friends in her collegiate network do some digging on the Blue Guard. Turns out a lot of their memorabilia made museum rounds until the mid-eighties, including the “one and only” war stick. Then the stuff went into museum storage in Northern Virginia. She has photos showing the exhibit and the scene when the items were being put into storage. Everyone wonders if the one and only war stick was sealed into storage, how can they have it right there on the table?

We go to the museum storage as they are taken to the crate where the Blue Guard items are stored. Gibbs unseals the big crate, which turns out to be filled with a lot of other crates. Bishop wonders where to begin. Gibbs says maybe with the box marked “Viking War Stick.” Heh. Gibbs opens the crate and, yeah, no war stick. The docent tells them that the security footage is only stored for six months. Then Bishop notices what looks like blood splatter on one of the crates, only it looks black. Gibbs says that’s because it’s old. Like 16 years old. They have found the scene of the murder. Fade to a bemused Gibbs black-and-white.

Back in the Bull Pen, panic ensues when Bishop thinks her new Mack truck stapler is dead, but turns out it was just out of staples. Naturally, Gibbs is not there, because that would mean he’s in a scene with Abby, and that doesn’t happen this season. We learn that he and McGee are talking to Dead Petty Officer’s former girlfriend. Abby says that the blood on the storage crate matches DPO’s, but they all expected that. What they don’t know is why DPO’s body was dumped miles away, or who took it there. Abby turns to the Screen of All Knowing and says someone must have known DPO was going to the storage facility.

Emily Wickersham as Bishop and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Abby hangs back and talks to Sloane about EGA. She wants some of Sloane’s lollipops to help break the ice. Sloane doesn’t think Abby has anything to worry about with EGA. She thinks they’ll click eventually, but offers to help Abby pick out just the right color lollis.

Up in the conference room, Gibbs and Bishop are talking to woman who was DPO’s girlfriend at the time of his murder. She says that even all these years later, she’s never shaken the sick feeling she’s had since his death. She knows nothing about the storage facility and that it’s not the kind of place she’d imagine DPO would be interested in. Gibbs reviews her statement at the time of DPO’s death, and she confirms it. DPO went out for a beer with his buddy who was always having girl trouble, and the next time she saw him was on an NCIS autopsy table. Gibbs shares that Buddy says they were done drinking beer at 10. All Girlfriend asks is what Buddy is saying now.

Buddy is being interviewed in the interrogation room by McGee and Torres. Buddy says he’s felt guilt all these years for not seeing DPO home all the way or staying for another beer with him. He’s a willing helper, he wants them to solve the crime. Gibbs, on the other side of the glass, doesn’t look convinced. They question Buddy about the beer joint, and he tells them it’s no longer there, then gets a bit defensive, saying he thought they had new info. McGee tells Buddy that they checked and the records show that DPO was off duty that night, but Buddy was not. Buddy shrugs that off, but McGee continues, telling Buddy that, according to their information, he was on duty and tasked with moving some artifacts from the Naval Academy Museum to the museum storage facility. The same one where DPO’s blood was found. So, how could they be doing both of those things at the same time?

Buddy caves and explains that what really happened was that DPO covered his shift so he could go see his girlfriend, as it was the only night they could make that happen. DPO didn’t tell his GF the truth because Buddy’s girlfriend? Yeah, she was their CO’s wife. What a nice young man he is. He didn’t come clean about it when questioned, as it would have ended her life, his CO’s life, his life. But he didn’t see any connection to his seeing his GF and DPO getting killed. The delivery and where DPO were found were 20 miles apart. He said if he’d known DPO’s blood was found at the storage facility, he’d have told the truth. He tells them that once he delivered the artifacts to storage, he was supposed to be picked up by a civilian and taken to a storage place in Philly. So … my question here, was DPO going to go all the way to Philly? And given he was killed in the first storage place, why didn’t the civilian dude report that his Navy guy wasn’t there when he got there (assuming DPO’s body had been already been taken elsewhere)? Unless, of course, Civilian is the killer. But … why would he kill DPO? He didn’t even know he was going to be taking the shift.

Ducky and Gibbs are on the other side of the two-way. Ducky is disgusted that Buddy didn’t tell the truth. Enter Bishop, and they tell her that Buddy is a liar, but not likely their killer. Bishop tells them they did a little digging on the revolver Financier bought from Roy. Turns out it was listed as a World War II relic, but nothing about Patton. Financier paid $15,000 for it, so either Roy lied to him about the provenance, or Financier lied to them about why he paid that much money for the gun. Ducky asks why he’d do that, and we fade to a pensive Gibbs and Bishop black-and-white.

In Abby Lab, EGA talks Ducky down from the ledge. He’s ready to ditch his entire unsolved-cases chapter, but she alternately bullies and cajoles him into keeping the other two unsolved cases and maybe proposing a brand new chapter dedicated solely to the war stick. Pleased with that idea, Ducky tells her she’s an acquired taste, but he’s glad he acquired his and kisses her on the cheek. He heads out, and Abby, who watched the whole scene, tucked to the side of the doorway, enters with her lollipops and congratulates EGA for being so good with standing up to Ducky, saying it took Palmer years to do that. EGA accepts the kind words but turns back to her work, all her effusiveness gone. Enter Palmer, prompting EGA to get up and do a big hello deal with Palmer, with Abby caught uncomfortably in the middle. There is an awkward pause, then EGA goes back to her desk and Palmer congratulates Abby on fixing things between her and EGA. She’s all, yeah, sort of. Not really.

Brian Dietzen as Palmer and David McCallum as Ducky in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

But we’re up in the Bull Pen, and Torres notes that Mack truck stapler is in a position of prominence on Bishop’s desk. She explains that it’s actually now the coolest paperweight ever. Turns out it only uses antique staples, which she’s ordered from an antique shop in Zurich. Torres is all, Yeah, priceless. His faith in antiques is not restored.

Enter Gibbs, who wants to know what they have on Financier. He made his fortune managing a hedge fund. Was born and raised in Philly. Hold up! Clue! Which Torres mentions. Gibbs is standing at his desk with a bat propped on his shoulder. Again. They tell him Financier is a rags-to-riches story. Just out of high school, he worked a series of odd jobs, one of which was driving a truck for a company that dealt in fine furnishings and artwork. Enter Ducky, who confirms that that truck-driving job was 16 years ago. He’s pleased that they might finally have their man. Torres gets the titanium business card, hoping Financier left behind some DNA that could connect him to the objects in the crates that DPO delivered.

Down in Abby Lab, the objects from the crates are set out on a table. Some of them. Turns out there are 30 more. Ducky tells Abby he hopes she can find a DNA connection. He and Gibbs are going to try and get a confession from Financier, but having direct proof would be best. She says she’ll need more help, maybe get Palmer. Ducky notes that maybe EGA can help her, seeing as her degree was in forensic science. Ah. It all becomes clear. EGA is in the doorway, and Ducky beckons her to come into the lab as Abby’s eyes go wide and she’s all, “Forensic science?” Like, really? Abby confronts EGA, who claims she has no beef with Abby, but before we can find out what gives, Ducky tells EGA to scrub up and get a lab coat on. She and Abby can bury the hatchet, just not with him around. He exits, and the two just kind of look at each other. (I vote for intimidated. That was always my vote.)

We shift to a montage scene of them working together, processing all the pieces, then we finally get to the heart of it. EGA learned about Abby from working on Ducky’s book. She dug a little into Abby and discovered she was The Beatles of forensic science. Abby is all, What? Beatles? EGA explains she means that Abby is the best at doing what EGA wants to do. And suddenly it all comes together. (Well, I already guessed the intimidation part.) What I mean is … we all know this is Abby’s last season. EGA was an over-the-top kind of walk-on character, but they have her meshing with the entire crew straight off, so … have we just met Abby’s replacement? I … think maybe we have. I don’t know how I feel about that. I like EGA well enough. (I guess I’ll have to start calling her Kasie.) I’m just not ready to deal with losing Abby. At least Kasie has had more scenes with Gibbs than Abby has this entire season. So we have that going for us. And she’s a compulsive hugger. So, yeah. I think if we get a season 16, we’ve got our Abby 2.0. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, EGA/Kasie explains how no one was more surprised than she was when she froze, but she is just such a big fan. And she was meeting The Beatles. Abby asks her how she feels now, and EGA/Kasie doesn’t reply, because she’s too busy looking at a chunk of something under a splinter inside the storage case. Abby comes over, looks at it, too, then turns and tells Kasie she just found the evidence. Abby hugs Kasie, prompting her to close her eyes in glee and gush about how she’s hugging The Beatles. So, acquired taste, yes, and potentially adorbs, true, but … I’m not ready, Show. I’m just not.

Gibbs and Ducky confront Financier in his office. Financier smugs around a bit, says he’s proud of his blue-collar roots, but has no memory of some petty officer or shipment he delivered so many years ago. He takes out Patton’s gun and offers it to Gibbs, who is not interested. Gibbs tells him it wasn’t Patton’s and that he overpaid for it, to buy Roy’s silence. Gibbs says when he wasn’t sure Roy could be trusted, even after the payoff, he waited behind the shop and killed him. Financier seems surprised by their announcement about the gun and asks what he’d be buying silence for. Ducky shows him a photo of the war club and Financier dismisses it as “that old thing again.” Ducky says “that old thing” was in the crate that night. He surmises that Financier was trying to steal anything of value from the crate and DPO caught him. Financier used the war stick because it was handy and stopped DPO before he could rat him out. The same way he stopped Roy. Club to the head. Ducky says he took DPO in his truck to the worst neighborhood he could find and dumped the body, then sold the war stick — always looking to make a buck — to Roy. Suddenly, Financier isn’t “entertained” by their story. Then Gibbs gets a call from Abby. (What?!? Hey, it’s not a scene together, but even this remote connection is more than we’ve had since early on this season!) She tells him that the skin Kasie found under the sliver is a match to Financier’s DNA from the titanium card. Gibbs is all, “We got him!?!” and seems inordinately tickled by this information, then we remember this is a 16-year-old case. Gibbs is still laughing when Financier asks him what it is that he’s got.

Mike Wolfe of American Pickers as himself in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Shift to interrogation, where Financier gives Torres and Gibbs his full written statement, asking if they’re happy now. Torres says no, not yet. He wants to know why Financier didn’t just throw away that ugly stick. He said maybe he should have, but that war stick is what gave him his start. He took the $2,000 Roy gave him for it and eventually turned it into $2 billion. He says that talisman stuff is real, that it was one lucky chunk of wood. “Not anymore,” Gibbs says, taking Financier by the arm. “Not anymore,” Abby repeats from her spot on the other side of the two-way. (They’re getting closer!) Ducky and Kasie are there, too. Ducky says better late than never. Abby hugs Kasie and says, “And better together.” Ducky tells Kasie well done, but she’s not having his sweet talk. She wants to know where his proposal is for the new chapter. He’s all, “I’ve been a little preoccupied.” She tells him they have three days, and he needs to “move those duck feathers.” Heh.

We move to Gibbs’ basement, where he has opened a metal chest that seems to contain some military and personal memorabilia. Enter Sloane, who is tickled to finally make it down to his “inner sanctum.” She glances at the boat and says, “I’m not even going to ask about that.” HA. She said unless that’s what he wanted to show her. He says no, and she sees the box and all the memorabilia inside of it. He says she fought in a war, so he thought she’d appreciate it. There are all kinds of items from that time period, including pinup girls and the like. Delighted, she says it looks like a wonderful time capsule. Gibbs opens a small metal case — I don’t know what it is, I’m sorry — and you can see a thing inside the metal case that looks just like that little item he bought from Junk Owner in the beginning of the episode. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what he bought. He tells her it’s his dad’s. Turns out it’s an old military-issue razor. The piece he bought connects the pieces to form the handle. She says they don’t make them like that anymore, and he agrees, saying it makes it hard to find parts. She tells him he got lucky, and grinning broadly as she laughs, he says he sure did. They both laugh, and he says it’s a lot better now, and she adds that it’s cool as hell. She asks him how much something like that is worth to a collector, and he says not much. She asks him how much it means to him. He leans closer and appears to study her intently … then he says, “The steaks are burning.” Heh. She smells it, too, and tells him good catch. They run up the stairs as she tells him she likes hers medium rare, asking him if he’s a well-done guy. And we fade to black-and-white.

What in the heck was that, Show? Are we Going There?

First, Abby 2.0, then possibly the First Real Step with Gibbs and Sloane? I just …

What I can just say is that it was another good ep. I’m guessing this might also be the beginning of Abby’s exit story. Or the pre-beginning, at any rate. We have only five episodes left this season. So, now would be a good time to get started on that!

It’s also a good time to announce the winner of last week’s giveaway. Thanks for all the enthusiastic entries and comments. I know I wasn’t able to respond to every single one — deadline-hell struggles are real — but I did read them all and very much appreciate your thoughts on the show, this season, what’s going to happen to Abby, what will happen next season, will there BE a next season? Keep them coming!

Right now, I’m happy to announce the winner of a signed copy of Blue Hollow Falls and a copy of the between-big-books e-novella, The Inn at Blue Hollow Falls, is Barbara McDonald! Barbara, drop me a note to donna@donnakauffman.com with your address and we’ll get your prize to you!

In the meantime, I have a Very Special Giveaway this week. I managed to get my hands on an advance review copy of my June 26 release, Bluestone & Vine. These are the bound copies of the uncorrected page proofs that are sent out early to reviewers and media journalists. Want to impress the neighbors and be the envy of all your friends and get your hands on a copy before anyone else? Easy! Drop me a line to donna@donnakauffman.com with “I want Bluestone & Vine first!” in the subject line and you’re in the running. I’ll announce the winner right here when we’re back in two weeks for episode 18!

Yes, I know, another break! But let’s hope it’s because they’re gearing up for our big Abby Exit Story! (I’m not ready!!!)

Until then …

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C. politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts

Dee Davis

This Is Us’ season finale, The Wedding, brings us full circle with the Pearsons. As they prepare for Kate’s wedding, everyone’s thoughts are centered around the missing Jack, even though he’s been gone for many years. Despite his absence, he is still the heart of their family. But although they love him, his death, in many ways, has held them hostage, and it is time for them to find the courage to move on.

Coincidentally, I am heading to my brother’s wedding this weekend. And today is my father’s birthday. (He’s been gone 14 years, and it still feels like yesterday). Not having him there will be difficult, but life goes on and there are still wonderful moments to celebrate. So this episode held special meaning for me.

Opening with an almost wistful celebration of Rebecca and Jack’s 40th wedding anniversary, we see what might have been as we cut to the present and preparations for Kate and Toby’s wedding. In an effort to feel closer to her dad, Kate has chosen to have the wedding at the family cabin. Toby tells Kate that he knows this is hard for her, that she misses Jack. But he asks that she please not play runaway bride.

Kate assures him she’s in it for good, but we know that things are bothering her. Toby jokes about Jack’s urn sitting at the sign-in station with the guest book. And Kate tells him she’s planning to wear Jack’s Daytona Beach T-shirt as her something borrowed.

Sterling K. Brown as Randall and Susan Kelechi Watson as Beth in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

As Toby heads off to pick up his divorced parents (played by the wonderful Dan Lauria and Wendy Malick), Kate asks Kevin if he thinks Jack would be OK with having the wedding at the cabin. Kevin assures her that he would.

Meanwhile in New Jersey, Beth and Randall are putting the last touches on the wedding gift bags and worrying about Deja. Since the hearing where Deja’s mother terminated parental rights, Deja has been understandably angry and confused. But she’s taking the anger out on the Pearsons. Randall and Beth try to stem their worries by imagining worst-case scenarios like “she kills them in their sleep,” “she kills them but not in their sleep,” “both Deja and Tess wind up on the pole.” Not very comforting choices. But oddly, I understand just what they’re doing. By imagining the very worst, they can release some of their anxiety.

I actually tend to plan for the worst and figure if I’m ready for that, then anything else will be a bonus. My family thinks I’m nuts.

From their conversation, we move to Rebecca as she tries to figure out what to wear to the wedding. Miguel tells her she’ll look good in anything, but Rebecca worries that she’ll do something to upset Kate. It seems that no matter what she says or does, it’s always the wrong thing. “I put her on edge,” she tells Miguel. “I’m a walking reminder of Jack. I’m what she got stuck with instead.”

Meanwhile, Randall arrives at the cabin after dropping Beth and the girls off at the hotel. Kate can’t find the Daytona T-shirt, and she’s close to losing it. Her brothers try to soothe her, to no avail. Kevin and Randall call Toby to check about the T-shirt and Toby realizes he forgot to pack it. Kevin tells Kate that their dad was more than a T-shirt and that it will be OK, but clearly Kate is not happy.

We cut again to a vision of the 40^th-year recommitment ceremony. Jack gives a toast to Rebecca saying that the highlight of his life was getting to sit next to her every day once they started Big Three Homes.

Back to the real present, Deja is bad-mouthing the cabin, her attitude just this side of hostile. And Beth’s cousin Zoe arrives from Chicago. Zoe is going to take pictures for the wedding. It’s clear that Beth and Zoe are close.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Randall gather a bunch of old stuff of Jack’s, including a football and a baseball bat. They offer the items to Kate so that she can choose something old. Maybe it’s not so good to have brothers in charge of a wedding? Kate tells them that she has her own plan. Rebecca arrives saying, “Happy wedding day, bug.” Kate cuts her mom off and says she has an errand. Rebecca feels like she’s managed to screw up things with Kate yet again.

Mother-daughter relationships are so difficult, and when you add in hero worship for a father who has passed away, things can be downright tricky. Both Kate and Rebecca try, but sometimes in trying they fail. It is clear, however, that they care for each other despite their inability to connect in a seemingly meaningful way.

Chrissy Metz as Kate and Chris Sullivan as Toby in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Kate drives to the ice cream place she and Jack used to visit when they’d have father-daughter moments. The place has been sold to a new owner, and when Kate asks if they still have banana pudding ice cream, the guy at the counter tells her no. Kate had hoped to serve it at her wedding, a visual reminder that Jack was still a part of the celebration.

Again, we see the 40-year anniversary celebration, this time with Jack watching as Rebecca sings Cat Stevens’ Moonshadow. This is the song she was singing when Jack first sees her, and hearing her sing it now causes Jack to tear up.

Back at the cabin, we see the bridesmaids getting ready, but everyone is worried because Kate is MIA. Madison offers to help, telling Kevin and Randall she’s the maid of honor, except Kate doesn’t have a maid of honor. Randall tells Kevin that Madison is crazy. Kevin tells Randall not to let him sleep with her.

Meanwhile, Zoe and Beth talk about Deja. And Zoe reminds Beth that she might be the best person to talk to Deja because she was an angry kid just like her.

Kevin and Randall arrive at the ice cream shop just behind their sister, but miss her. And as they drive away, trying to think of where to find her, they play the worst-case-scenario game. Randall suggests that they’ve told Toby the wedding is off and he has a heart attack and dies. Kevin is appalled. They continue with the exercise until Randall says in all truth, “What if after Dad died, I got so absorbed in my own life, I stopped looking out for my sister?” And Kevin follows up with, “What if she spent so much time taking care of me, she never took care of herself?” He then tells Randall he does not feel better.

The hard truth of life is that we can’t expect anyone to be responsible for our happiness. That’s only on us. Things happen, sometimes precipitated by others, but the way we choose to respond is totally up to us. There’s a saying I love: “Don’t let anyone steal your joy.” I think those are words worth remembering.

We cut back to the anniversary and the guests dancing. Kate with Jack. This fades to Kate in the real present, driving and thinking.

Meanwhile, Deja and Zoe have a talk. Deja is resistant, but Zoe insists. Zoe tells her that her own mom dumped her. When Deja tells her she doesn’t care, Zoe says that she did. That she got really good at making Beth and her family’s lives miserable to pay for it. And then one day she just forgot to be mad. “It was a good day when it stopped making sense — hating the people who loved me.”

In his hotel room, Toby’s parents have gathered for an intervention. They tell him that they have concerns about Kate. That it feels like he is constantly bending over backward to make her happy. They worry that she’s unstable. And mostly they remember how Toby reacted to losing his first wife. They saw him grappling with deep depression and don’t want that to happen again. Toby fights back, telling them that if anyone is unstable it’s him. And that he is in love with Kate Pearson. So they can either get with the program or leave.

Justin Hartley as Kevin and Sterling K. Brown as Randall in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

This is a lovely bit of foreshadowing. Something the writers in this show use to amazing purpose.

Rebecca, meanwhile, is still worried about Kate, but she calls and tells her mom that she’s been dreaming about Rebecca and Jack’s 40th anniversary party. She goes on to say that all of them were there to celebrate and that they were so happy. “It’s the way it was supposed to be,” she says. Rebecca replies that even with the sadness of knowing it was a dream, surely Toby was there to make her feel better.

Kate tells her that Toby wasn’t in the dream. As usual, Rebecca has said the wrong thing. And she is devastated to have done so yet again. We cut back to Kate as she stops by the big tree she and Jack used to go to talk. We’ve seen it in several other episodes with Jack and young Kate. She brings the urn and talks to her dad now. Telling him that she’s not sure why Toby wasn’t in the dreams. That she’s certain he’s the right guy and that Jack would think so, too.

Then she tells Jack that she remembers riding carnival rides with him and feeling both scared and, at the same time, safe. And that she’s held on to that feeling for a long time. But she knows that in order to make room for Toby, she has to let go a little. And so we see her slowly opening the urn.

When I was a kid, I was really truly afraid of the dark. Or I guess more likely what the dark was filled with. Once, I went with my family to a small traveling carnival. They had a haunted house, and my dad and I stood in line to go in. He asked several times if I was sure, and holding tightly to his hand, I assured him I was. We finally reached the front of the line and were ushered into the darkened foyer of the haunted house.

I don’t remember anything about the room except that it was dark and that my dad’s hand never left mine. I panicked and, bless him, he turned us around and marched us right out the front door. I’ll never forget that moment — my knight in shining armor, putting me first and rescuing me from my own imagined fears. That’s a difficult hand to let go of.

But the only way I could ever be the wife my husband deserved was if I let go of that hand — just a little. Great writing from This Is Us that speaks to our hearts.

Randall and Kevin arrive just as Kate is returning to her car. “Did you do it?” they ask. “I did.” She nods, clutching the carryall that held Jack’s urn. The brothers turn to each other and smile. “We’re great brothers.”

Lyric Ross as Deja in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

At the cabin, Deja surprises Beth, coming out of the bedroom dressed up for the wedding. Beth hugs Zoe and thanks her for her help.

Rebecca comes to Kate, who is dressed for her wedding, and apologizes for her early bumbling. Kate tells her, “Mom, I know our stuff can be complicated, but it’s because all I ever wanted was to be you. I want to be a singer like you. I want to be a mom like you. And I want to have a marriage like yours.” She goes on to say, “Mom, you are not in my way — you are my way.”

Kate has grown so much over the two seasons of this show. Her relationship with Rebecca has matured, and this is a moment they will both cherish, but perhaps Rebecca most of all. As we fade out to begin a montage of the actual wedding, the story is overlaid with Kate’s memories of her father. Telling him that she wants to marry him one day.

As we watch first Toby at the altar, and then Annie and Tess coming down the aisle, the camera pans back to Kate with her bouquet, Kevin and Randall both beaming behind her. The focus changes to the flowers, and the screwdriver (Jack’s) nestled among the blossoms.

As she walks forward, we see and hear Jack as he tells young Kate that is doesn’t work that way, marrying one’s father. “But you want to know the exciting part?” he asks. “One day, a long time from now, you’ll meet someone who is better than me. And when you find him, that’s the guy you’ll marry. And he’ll be one lucky guy. And I’ll walk you down the aisle and I may even cry a little.”

Toby and Kate exchange vows, and their joy is shared by both of their families.

Chris Sullivan as Toby and Chrissy Metz as Kate in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Later, dancing at the wedding, Randall doesn’t understand what Zoe did, but he’s delighted to see a change in Deja. But then Toby’s mother recognizes the girls as belonging to Beth and Randall. Unknowingly, she tries to be friendly, telling Annie and Tess that they look just like their mom. And that Deja looks just like her dad.

Deja casts a glance in Beth and Randall’s direction and freaks. She rushes from the reception, clearly angry and confused. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to go through that kind of loss and rejection. Even though Deja’s mother is doing what she thinks best, it is still painful for Deja.

Kevin calls for everyone’s attention, then, wanting to begin the toasts. “Randall and I have been going a little crazy,” he says, “trying to make the day perfect, because that’s what Dad would have done. And if he were here, he’d say, ‘Katie, girl, in your life you’ve never looked more beautiful than you do now.’ And he would be right. Mom, Randall — earlier this year Kate said something to me that was profound. She said, ‘Kevin, if you don’t allow yourself to grieve Dad’s death, it’s like talking a giant breath in and just holding it there for the rest of your life.’ I’m thinking maybe we’ve been holding on to that breath. So I think the four of us should release that breath together.”

They all do, and we see each of them as they slowly take it in and let it go.

Randall steps up for his toast and says that he’s always been big on control. That it’s taken him 37 years to learn that there is no trying to control the future.

Justin Hartley as Kevin and Sterling K. Brown as Randall in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

We flash-forward for a moment and see Kevin and Zoe on a plane, clearly together, Kevin holding a photo of Jack (and Nicky) in Vietnam. And we see Kate trying to get Toby out of bed, telling him that the doctor wants to see him — maybe adjust his meds.

Cutting back to the present, we see Deja outside taking Jack’s baseball bat to the windshield of a car.

And in the future we see grown-up Tess and Randall. Randall telling Tess that it’s time to go see her. Tess saying, “I’m not ready.” Randall responding, “Me neither.”

Shades of what is to be set against a perfect moment of happiness that has been shaped by events of the past. Time curling into itself both from beyond and behind. The only moment that is truly real — is the one we are living now. Which is why we have to inhabit it fully and celebrate all that it offers.

Next season promises more of Jack’s story and hints at troubles for Kate and potential joy for Kevin. But nothing is ever as it seems on this show. So we’ll just have to wait to find out what happens.

See you next season!

When not sitting at the computer writing, bestselling author Dee Davis spends her time exploring Connecticut with her husband and Cardigan Welsh Corgis. Known for her romantic suspense and time-travel novels, her latest book is Fade to Gray. Visit her at www.deedavis.com.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Dee’s posts

I know I originally was going to talk about A Wrinkle in Time this month, but I have to talk about Marvel’s Jessica Jones. The second season released earlier this month on Netflix, and wow! Often a show in its second season experiences a slump. Especially when it was so exceptional with its first season. If you don’t know Marvel’s Jessica Jones, she’s not your average superhero. She’s tortured, flawed, in your face, an alcoholic and, at the end of the day, someone struggling to just keep her head above water. Jessica is a private investigator and her methods are about as far away from by-the-book as one can get.

Krysten Ritter as Jessica in Jessica Jones. (Photo: David Giesbrecht, Netflix)

In the first season, Jessica battled Kilgrave, a man with the ability to control a person’s actions with his voice who had used his sadistic mind control on her. In the second season, Jessica is battling what to my mind is an even greater foe — the demons she holds inside, along with IGH, a corporation that conducted illegal experiments on her after the car accident that claimed her family’s lives and gave her the powers she has today.

These are my Top 5 plot points from the second season of Jessica Jones (some spoilers ahead!):

Jessica getting back into her routine after killing Kilgrave at the end of season one. The secret of her superpowers is out, and she’s being called a vigilante by the public at large. Even though she defeated her nemesis in season one, she is struggling with the fact that she killed him, questioning whether she is a decent person or a monster. That is her underlying quandary throughout the season, whether she is a good person or a murderer and a monster.

Rachael Taylor as Trish in Jessica Jones. (Photo: David Giesbrecht, Netflix)

Trish’s downward spiral. Jessica’s best friend, Trish, who helped her defeat Kilgrave in season one, is struggling with addiction. She’s become addicted to a drug that was created by the evil company IGH. It gives her temporary superpowers each time she takes it. Trish doesn’t want to be normal, she wants to be a superhero and have powers so she can make a difference in the world. Her choices in the season will end up ruining her relationship with Jessica.

Janet McTeer as Alisa, Jessica’s mother, in Jessica Jones. (Photo: David Giesbrecht, Netflix)

Jessica discovering her mother is still alive. This is a bombshell. It makes Jessica question everything she knows about herself, about the accident her family was in, her memories of her life before the accident. It makes her question who she is at her fundamental core.

Jessica’s mother kidnapping her. Until this point in the season, Jessica was waffling between saving her mother or turning her mother over to the police where she will likely be sentenced to the raft (a superhero prison for people with special abilities) for all the murders she’s committed. Once a person goes to the raft, they are never seen again. But with this turning point, Jessica has to decide what she wants more and ultimately goes against everything she knows to be right.

Eka Darville as Malcolm and Krysten Ritter as Jessica in Jessica Jones. (Photo: David Giesbrecht, Netflix)

Trish stepping in to save Jessica only to have it backfire. In the final episode of season two, old alliances and friendships break down completely. Jessica finally understands that she’s been keeping herself isolated and makes strides to change that fact. Although her relationships with Trish and Malcolm, two people she’d depended upon and had become her unit in season one, have disintegrated with each person going their separate ways.

The setup for a pivotal season three is huge, and I hope Netflix picks it up. Jessica Jones is truly one of my favorite Marvel superheroes, mainly because she’s gritty and down to earth. If you haven’t watched Jessica Jones yet, both seasons are available on Netflix. I will warn you, once you start watching, you will not want to stop. I consider it one of Netflix’s top binge-worthy shows. Enjoy it! You can thank me later.

Thanks for stopping by and joining me in my geekiness!! I promise to be back next month with another geeky installment. If you’re looking for your next read, the first book in my all-new Cuffs and Spurs Series, His Scandalous Love, is available now. Oh, and go see A Wrinkle in Time — it’s spectacular fun!

About His Scandalous Love:

Carter Jones is a fairly simple man. He loves his ranch, his horses, and dominating women in the bedroom. He’s the owner and founder of the exclusive Cuffs and Spurs Club in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, yet for the past year Carter has achieved something of a monk’s status within the ranks of his club. And all because of Jenna, a woman he had an unforgettably sensual week with a year ago, who then vanished from his life without a trace and left him reeling.

When he discovers Jenna practically on his doorstep, Carter moves heaven and earth to draw her back into his life. Only she has a scandalous secret, one that upends his life completely. Can he forgive her for the secrets she kept? Or will the mistrust tear them apart – forever this time?

—

Anya Summers is a bestselling and award-winning author published in multiple fiction genres. She also writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance under the name Maggie Mae Gallagher. A total geek at her core, when she is not writing, she adores attending the latest comic con or spending time with her family. She currently lives in the Midwest with her two furry felines. Find out more at www.anyasummers.com.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Anya’s posts

Heidi Cullinan

I’ve been nervous about this episode since I saw the previews, and while it didn’t go quite in the direction I thought it would, it definitely took me on a ride. Continuing on our theme of character, character, character! we forge onward into this episode and its recap.

The episode opens with a flashback to the 1950s, where Pierce is looking at crime scene photos in a bar. A woman asks him what he’s working on, if he wants to take a break and buy her a drink. He brushes her off. Another woman, this one a blonde and more refined and confident, buys him a drink, but he’s not interested in her either. Another man comes up and says, “We have to go, detective,” and he leaves. The second detective calls the killer they’re chasing the Broken Hearts Killer, which Pierce warns him not to do, because these names stick.

Then we’re in the present, and the Broken Hearts Killer just died in prison, according to a headline, and Lucifer is upset about the chemistry between Pierce and Chloe as they talk about their great night at the Azura concert. Ella and Lucifer argue over whether it was chemistry and whether they had sex and whether Pierce and Chloe getting together might come between Lucifer and Chloe, if they’ll spend their time together and leave Lucifer out of it.

Pierce is in the middle of asking Chloe out on a dinner date when Dan interrupts with news of a double murder that immediately reminds Pierce of the Broken Hearts Killer. Chloe is a little awkward about being asked out and glad to be stopped.

Tom Welling as Pierce and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Amenadiel is in the middle of an awkward, misplaced vent about his father during his coffee order when he runs into Charlotte, who he doesn’t yet know isn’t the Goddess. He follows her out of the shop, stops her, calls her Mom and carries on about the flaming sword and way too many details about things she has no memory of, and he also mentions Lucifer. Eventually, he figures out his mistake and stops, backtracking, but not before Charlotte’s curiosity is piqued and she asks him who he thinks she was. He leaves, but too much tea has been spilled.

At the crime scene, Lucifer can’t take it anymore and asks Chloe if she had sex with Pierce. Chloe is offended, but says no, she didn’t, they just went to a concert. They’re in the middle of this debriefing when Pierce literally walks through them (breaking them up) and says, Brace yourselves, this is an entirely different kind of case. The victims have been drugged unconscious and then literally had their chests smashed in. One of the victims is married, and that individual has their wedding ring inside them. Basically, this setup fits the profile of the Broken Hearts Killer.

Dan brings Trixie by Chloe and Maze’s house to pick up her backpack and brownies for school when they discover a house full of drunk people, including one in Trixie’s bed. When Dan wakes up Maze to scold her, Maze is indifferent and blackmails Dan with the reminder that they killed a man together once. Dan tells Maze to get herself together and leaves.

Lucifer gets angry when Pierce tags along on their case, especially when Pierce makes it clear he has amorous intentions for Chloe. Lucifer doesn’t fight the relationship aspect too hard, though he’s clearly upset. Lucifer focuses on the partner aspect instead, saying there’s only room for one immortal in the detective’s life. They interrogate a potential suspect, the wife of the male victim, but she’s shocked at his death. There’s also a new couple found dead while she’s being interrogated, and Chloe says this is clearly a serial copycat situation and they need Pierce on the case.

They investigate the second couple, but as is usual with the Broken Hearts Killer, there’s no trace of any clues. We flash back to the ’50s again, and the blond woman, Kay, who seems to have Pierce’s number. She says he doesn’t want to be alone but also doesn’t feel like he deserves the company. She makes a comment about how the killer seems to be obsessed with perfection, like the people who come into her bar before birthdays days beforehand, making sure everything is right.

In the present day, Pierce checks CCTV footage a week before and gets a lead on a guy who was taking pictures who turns out to have been a tour guide for the Broken Hearts Killer Tour. They find him in front of the house owned by the original Broken Hearts Killer, arguing with the owner who is telling him to get away from his house and to stop taking pictures.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

The detectives and Lucifer take the tour, posing as part of his three o’clock group, and catch the tour guide knowing details that haven’t been made public, so they arrest him. Then Pierce goes back to the bar where the woman he talked to had been in the 1950s and sees a woman who is a dead ringer for Kay. It turns out the blond woman at the bar in the present is Eddie, not Kay, who was her grandmother. Her grandfather was Pierce’s old partner, who solved the original case. He’s gone, and Kay is gone, too. She sits and talks with Pierce about the past and how Kay and Pierce’s former partner passed.

Meanwhile, Amenadiel goes to see Linda to warn her about Charlotte, finds out she already knows, then is upset she didn’t tell him. He feels she should tell Charlotte the truth, and Linda says no way, Charlotte is too fragile, and the way to help Charlotte is to stay away from her.

I’m writing this particular recap in real time during the first viewing: $10 says Amenadiel runs right to her and spills everything.

The tour guide isn’t the killer; he’s been fed information by McMillan, a cop, and now they’re back to square one. Fortunately, Pierce learns Eddie has her grandfather’s old records on the Broken Hearts Killer case, so Pierce is going through them. He asks Chloe and Lucifer to come help, but when Lucifer balks, annoyed at Pierce getting involved in their partnership, Chloe gets more annoyed and says maybe it’s better if she goes alone.

Dan confronts Maze at Chloe’s house again, even angrier this time because Trixie’s teacher had to be rushed to the hospital because she was given a pot brownie for Teacher Appreciation Day. Maze seems to find it funny; Dan doesn’t. He says the one red line is Trixie, and things like this can’t happen. To live in the same home with Trixie, she can’t pull stunts like this. Maze says fine, she’ll move out, since nobody wants her there anyway. When Dan says that’s not what he’s saying, Maze begins venting about how everyone wants her to be someone she’s not. She’s not a babysitter, she’s not a roommate, and she’s sick of Dan’s “goody-two-shoes ex-wife and that stupid little brat” anyway. In the doorway, Trixie hears all of this and runs away, full of tears. Dan follows.

We flash back again, where Kay suggests Pierce take her on a date, but he says he’s transferring out of state, and she’s upset because she thought they had a connection. She says he has these walls up, and he’s scared. The sad truth is, if he doesn’t learn to open up, no one will ever learn to love him. In the future, he and Chloe are in the same booth, and Chloe has a lead that all the victims are all calling into a radio show, and they hope maybe someone is doing that now.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

It turns out there is such a show now: Chance’s Chocolates, where one couple is called and offered chocolates, and they give an address (which is beeped out), either for their spouse or their lover. They’re revealed on-air as loyal or cheaters. (Ella is a huge fan.) This seems like a great lead, though the only people possible to be the killer would be anyone connected with the show. Pierce and Chloe pose as the cheating lovers and Lucifer as the jilted lover, who goes on the radio. Lucifer does exactly this, offended by the radio host and the whole process, and Chloe plays her part, a little too well as she describes what she likes about Pierce.

Oh, dear. I’m a little afraid of where we’re headed now.

Chloe shows up at Pierce’s house, and he shows her his rock collection — one from every place he’s visited, and it’s huge. He doesn’t have a lot of stuff in his house, but he has a killer view. He gives her a candlelight dinner and makes it clear this is a real date, not just a sting.

Lucifer joins Dan in the van as they wait for the killer to arrive. He asks Dan how he moved on when Lucifer replaced him — Dan laughs and says Lucifer didn’t replace him, though he admits he felt jealous. He says he realized Lucifer had nothing to do with why his marriage ended and that Lucifer had an entirely different kind of relationship with Chloe. Once he figured that out, he was fine.

Inside the house, Pierce is wooing Chloe with her favorite dishes, but Chloe interrupts his wooing to make it clear she’s not interested in romance with him, that she wants to keep things professional between them. She doesn’t want things to get weird between them. She compliments him for being a good man and says she likes him, but she needs someone who can let her in, and she doesn’t know if that’s him.

Tom Welling as Pierce in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Outside, Lucifer and Dan stop a shadowy figure, but he turns out to be a guy from the studio who is videotaping an angry ex busting in on their spouse. It turns out he posts the tapes from the radio show raw and unedited on his website, which is how the killer is getting the addresses. This guy isn’t the killer, but he’s certainly giving them a boost.

While they arrest this first intruder, a second one is sending gas in through the vents of Pierce’s home; after a little more awkward conversation between Chloe and Pierce — Pierce insisting he doesn’t want to put his walls up anymore — they both pass out. The killer comes in wearing a gas mask and carrying a sledgehammer, and after arranging his two victims on the floor beside one another, he takes off his mask and takes a swing.

Lucifer stops him. It’s the guy who bought the Broken Hearts Killer’s House. He found the killer’s journals and became inspired. He wanted to show the world you can’t just leave people. He also tells Lucifer he’s doing this for him, that he shouldn’t be cheated on. Lucifer, holding the man up, furious, tells the killer that he doesn’t get to decide who people get to be with — then freezes for a moment as clarity sets in. He, Lucifer, doesn’t get to decide that, either.

He scoops up Chloe, holding her gently as he makes sure she’s OK.

Amenadiel, meanwhile, continues to hang out near Charlotte, pretending to accidentally meet with her while actually stalking her. She comes up to him, calls his bluff, then demands he tell her the truth. Amenadiel, being Amenadiel, wastes no time and dives right in, leading with, “You were my mom.”

This is going to end so terribly.

Chloe arrives home and finds Olga, not Maze, watching Trixie, to her surprise. Olga reports Maze said a mean thing to her, then left, as in moved out. She’s barely figured that out when Lucifer shows up to apologize for acting insecure, and he acknowledges there’s room in her life for all sorts of relationships, even if one of them is with Pierce. He’s clearly sad, and she’s also clearly telegraphing that she’s not interested in Pierce, she’s interested in him and wants him to stay for coffee so he can get over himself and realize that, but he mentions a bachelorette party and leaves. So she watches him go, then gets on the phone and calls up Pierce, telling him dinner sounds great.

Tom Welling as Pierce and Aimee Garcia as Ella in Lucifer. (Photo: Ray Mickshaw, Fox)

Pierce takes the call with Ella, who praises him for going for it, for risking a broken heart. But he clarifies it’s not a broken heart he’s risking. “She’s the key to getting what I’ve always wanted,” he says. And the episode ends.

The episode is called The Last Heartbreak, but I feel like it should be called The Setup to Everyone’s Heartbreak, because pretty much everyone on the show (but Ella) at this moment is headed for the wall. There’s going to be one hell (pardon the pun) of a fight, and right now I really can’t begin to guess how it shakes out.

Which, of course, makes it so fun.

All I want is a little more Deckerstar by the end of the season, and can she please at least see him spread his wings? Come on, Lucifer Writers … let’s make a deal.

See you next episode.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

Heidi Cullinan

I have been saying over and over we were going to get some crazy-deep character payoff this season, and this episode is the one where the eggs in the incubator begin to show their cracks. In the case of our showpiece character, Maze, we get characteristic fireworks that look like more than the first blush of growth, but I don’t think Maze is even close to her final form. This episode is what we’ve been waiting for, and it also makes it clear the show has just begun.

Let’s dive in so we can talk about it more.

Remember in the last episode Lucifer basically gave his blessing for Chloe to date Pierce or do whatever she wanted with him because he’s not going to limit her happiness or determine who she gets to be with, and Maze self-destructed all over the place, including letting Trixie hear she thought she was a snot-nosed brat she didn’t care about. We also learned Pierce’s intentions toward Chloe aren’t pure at all, that what he wants remains the same: to find a way out of his death sentence, and he thinks she’s the way to do it. We open, then, with Maze destructively searching Chloe’s house — she’s moved out — looking for a knife and taking coconut water with her as she sets off. To everyone’s surprise, including Lucifer’s, we discover she intends to move out not to another L.A. apartment but back to hell, and she wants him to take her there. She’s done with humans, and she wants out. She wants to go home.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer and Lauren German as Chloe in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Lucifer refuses, because the last time he took someone on a “celestial Uber ride” someone — namely Chloe — almost got killed. He suggests she go blow off some steam instead. Maze is furious. “You went to hell for Pierce, a guy you don’t even like, and you won’t do the same for me?” “No,” Lucifer says. She swears to him he will regret this. At this moment, Chloe comes back, interrupting their incredibly tense moment, and she tries to get Maze to move back in and make things right. Maze refuses. When Chloe points out she’s doing this to herself, Maze becomes angry again. “So now this is my fault?” She storms off.

“Demons. Am I right?” Lucifer remarks as he sits down. Chloe chides him for name-calling and encourages him to go talk to her, basically trying to get him out of the house. She doesn’t manage to get him out in time, though, before Pierce enters the house wearing plainclothes … because he and Chloe were on a date. Chloe tries to hide it, but Lucifer figures out and leaves. Chloe apologizes to Pierce, saying she panicked because Lucifer’s a co-worker, but Pierce says he doesn’t see any reason to hide it. He’s all in.

Charlotte is in therapy with Linda, relaying the story of when Amenadiel stopped her at the coffee shop, then told her all about when she was the Goddess of All Creation. Well, not all of it, but enough of it to sound insane and both intrigue and confuse Charlotte. It sounds like madness to her, and yet she believes Amenadiel was sincere. Linda, meanwhile, is upset that Amenadiel intervened when she told him not to. Especially since now Charlotte wants to dig deeper.

On a case, Chloe worries about Maze to Lucifer as they head over to meet Ella to check out a body. Lucifer tries to soothe her, saying he told Maze to go blow off some steam and basically downplaying the whole incident to make Chloe feel better. At the body, Chloe confesses she’s dating Pierce, and Ella sends Chloe to check the CCTV so she can comfort Lucifer, who she believes is upset. Lucifer insists he’s fine, and before Ella can press, Chloe says she’s found something. She certainly has: It’s Maze on the CCTV, pulling her knife out of the victim’s body.

They can’t find Maze anywhere, but Chloe refuses to believe she’s guilty. Lucifer thinks she is. He explains how she was upset because he wouldn’t take her home and this is his fault. Chloe fails to understand how this is all because Lucifer wouldn’t give her a ride (ha), but Pierce thinks like Lucifer does: Maze is guilty and that Chloe is too close to the case. Pierce tries to tag along with Chloe to the winery to follow up on the victim’s last place of employment, but Lucifer steps in and keeps his place as her partner, taking her in his car, shutting Pierce out.

Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

On the drive, Lucifer grills Chloe about her relationship with Pierce. “That beach date … was it a date date?” “It was just a date,” Chloe replies. Lucifer says she can spend her spare time with whomever she chooses, then does a quiet rip on Pierce for being a gorilla with ham hands. He also expresses surprise she’d date someone “so on in years.” Of course this rib doesn’t land well, as he can’t exactly explain Pierce is the oldest human full stop without revealing who he is — something Chloe would never believe, so this doesn’t work on her either. Since his angle on this is that older men have performance issues and he doesn’t want to see her unsatisfied, we do get to learn, from Chloe, that she and Pierce aren’t even sleeping together.

Here I’m going to pause the recap and take a moment to hug the writers.

This is one of the biggest reasons Lucifer has such a loyal fan following and why I think romance readers and writers love it so much. The Lucifer writers understand the unstated rules. It’s not that Chloe can’t sleep with anyone but Lucifer exactly, but she absolutely can’t sleep with Pierce, who is using her. This isn’t that kind of show, and she isn’t that kind of character. It’s not about Chloe’s purity as a virgin — she was married to Dan at the beginning of the show, she’s clearly had relationships before him as well — but about her sanctity as a character, as a strong woman, as a kind, helpful woman adrift in this sea of madness, and as everyone’s, especially Lucifer’s, anchor. It’s about keeping her from betrayal so deep it involves her body. I love that they took this moment to clarify for not just Lucifer but for the audience that Chloe wasn’t sleeping with Pierce. Yes, they’re shaking the foundations of Deckerstar, but they’re not stabbing it with knives. It’s that kind of show.

At the winery, they speak to the winery owner and the supervisor who confirm the victim had worked there and was a good man, but also that Maze had been there and come looking for him. They search the victim’s trailer and find Maze’s favorite beverage can sitting there waiting to be picked up as evidence.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

As they return to the precinct, Linda reprimands Amenadiel for approaching Charlotte when she specifically told him not to. He says he couldn’t help it and that he disagrees with Linda’s assessment of the situation, and he calls her out for deciding how it should be handled just like he did with their relationship. She encourages him to continue to consider what is best for Charlotte, not for him.

Ella catches Pierce and Chloe holding hands in a conference room as everyone arrives to discuss the case; Dan sees them, too. Chloe is fine with those two catching them, but as soon as Lucifer arrives, she lets go and stands, moving away from Pierce, and Lucifer takes her seat so Chloe can’t sit next to him any longer. As they’re about to discuss whether Maze could truly be the killer, Maze shows up and confesses. Chloe tries to stop her, but Maze forces the issue, producing the murder weapon and making everyone angry enough to get them to book her.

Chloe follows Pierce, trying to get him to not automatically assume Maze did it, but he says he thinks she’s letting her feelings lead her in this case, just like she’s letting her feelings for Lucifer get between the two of them. She’s shocked by this, not understanding what he’s saying, denying everything, but Pierce points out her bullet necklace that he gave her, and he hints she should take it off. She insists it’s nothing, that he gave it to her as a joke. He doesn’t seem to buy this at all.

Lucifer and Chloe interrogate Maze, Lucifer still thinking she’s guilty, Chloe sure she isn’t. Their interrogation reveals, of course, that Maze doesn’t know the proper details of the case to be the killer. Now Lucifer is on board to keep her out of prison, though he’s derailed by Charlotte, who wants to ask him about Amenadiel and to confirm the strange things he’d told her. At first he tries not to tell her, but when she pushes, he lays out everything, no beating around the bush. Of course, she’s stunned and shaken, but Lucifer being Lucifer, just pats her on the arm and rushes off.

Ella goes to visit Maze to support her and say she doesn’t think she’s guilty, and Maze asks for a hug. Eager, Ella provides one, but of course Maze lifts her ID while they embrace. Ella has no idea, not yet, and finishes the DNA test on the can they lifted from the trailer. The DNA that would be Maze’s is inconclusive, but Chloe’s is there. That means they took the can from Chloe’s apartment, from her trash cans, and they could have found the knife there as well. Someone is framing Maze.

Maze is clearly fully aware of this and solving her own problems, breaking into secured areas to get files she needs, and thanks to Ella’s badge all she has to do is strong-arm one dopey officer. When the others catch up to the game, they realize Maze had staged her whole arrest so she could get herself into the file room and get a name from the booking sheet and see who the bail bondsman was who told her to go to the crime scene and end up getting framed for the murder. He either set her up or knows who did.

Aimee Garcia as Ella and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Chloe reports all this to Pierce, who approves them going off to find Maze. He tries to send Chloe off with a kiss, but Lucifer interrupts.

Maze, meanwhile, has located the bail bondsman, who is bowling. After some uniquely Maze persuasion, Barry Hill answers her questions. (He makes the mistake of telling Maze to get out of his way and wait until he finishes his turn — “Just stand there and look pretty.” It doesn’t go well for him.) He tells her someone paid him to call her, that they worked for Sebastian Corp., but before he can say anything more, he’s taken out by a sniper.

Charlotte confronts Amenadiel, saying she found Lucifer and asked him her questions, that he told her everything. Amenadiel is surprised … and concerned, because it’s just as Linda said, that Charlotte seems distraught and upset on a level that isn’t OK for her. She’s convinced she’s insane, that that’s the only way she can believe Lucifer’s story about who she was and who everyone else is.

Lucifer, Chloe and Ella catch up to Maze as the bail bondsman’s office has become a new crime scene. They can tell it was a sniper from across the street who killed the man, but of course the entire bowling team saw Maze beat up the man before the two of them disappeared to have a private conversation. The question remains, who took the victim out? It has to be someone who framed Maze … but who is behind this? They decide to interview Maze’s ex-bounties.

This section of the episode is another gem — face it, the entire episode is a gem, but this one is truly divine — as we get a whirlwind look at the people Maze has brought to justice and, we see in turn, how she has quietly reformed them. She is violent in her take-downs, but she is, as described by each of her bounties, kind and just and often helpful. In fact, the last interviewee informs them she shied him away from a bad gig at a winery. It’s the winery they investigated at the beginning of the show, where the victim worked.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Pierce watches the whole show, noting how close Chloe and Lucifer are, laughing over some of the bounties’ reactions, interacting so well with each other. He’s not happy as he realizes how impossible it’s going to be to separate the two of them. “They’re a package deal,” Dan tells him. “It’s like you fall in love with a woman who has a cat. You accept the cat because she’s worth it. Lucifer is the cat.” Pierce says he’s just going to get rid of the cat.

Maze is already at the winery, throwing knives at the woman who owns the place. She’s the one who framed Maze — the woman’s son was one of her bounties because he drove drunk, killed a girl and tried to get off on the charges with his mother’s rich lawyers. The son, it turns out, died in prison, and the woman framed Maze because she wanted her to suffer the way her son did. Maze is annoyed. Yet again, this is someone deciding all the bad things are her fault. She tries to attack the woman, but rich people have backup — another man appears with a gun and starts shooting at Maze.

Lucifer appears as well, however, and bends the gun before knocking the shooter out. Maze goes after the mother with her knife, but Chloe stops her and pleads for her to listen to reason, to be the Maze she knows her to be. She says this isn’t her fault, she’s not evil. Maze says that’s what she does, destroys things. Friendships, relationships, apartment walls. Chloe says no. “We’re all responsible for our own choices. Right now you can choose to put down that knife. You don’t destroy everything. Trixie loves you.” Chloe says she cares for her, too, that she’s such a good friend. She pleads for her to make the right choice.

But Maze won’t give in to Chloe’s love and care, not this time. “You’re the reason he won’t take me home,” she says to Chloe, which of course Chloe doesn’t understand at all. Maze throws the knife into the woman’s boot and walks off.

As the case against Maze wraps up, Amenadiel brings Lucifer to Charlotte and implores him to do what he has, in the past, asked him never to do: reveal his divine wings to a human. Charlotte is destroyed by the truth, certain she is insane, but Amenadiel wants Lucifer to show her his wings so she can believe. When she sees them, she’s shocked and amazed, but she’s full of joy, not terror. She’s happy because she’s not insane. A stark contrast to Lucifer’s reveal of himself to Linda, who saw Lucifer’s devil face and recoiled in horror.

Chloe approaches Pierce in the parking garage and apologizes for putting Lucifer first. She says Pierce was right, that she should take off the necklace. She does say, though, that she and Lucifer are good partners and she doesn’t want to lose that. They kiss, and this time when Lucifer sees them, she doesn’t back down. She also accepts a ride on Pierce’s motorcycle and doesn’t go with Lucifer.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Lucifer sits alone in the penthouse playing piano, smoking and drinking as he waits for Maze, whom he has summoned. He wants to apologize for accusing her of trying to manipulate him, as he realizes now she wasn’t. He pours her a drink and thinks that it’s over. Maze, however, says no way, she still wants to go back. Humans are too complicated. Feelings suck. She’s not supposed to be the one who gets tortured. She begs him again to take her home.

Lucifer says he can’t, and not just because of possible repercussions with his father. He can’t lose Chloe and Maze, too. She asks what he means, and Lucifer reports that Chloe has chosen a relationship with Pierce, that she seems happy with him. He wants that for her, but he can’t know his intentions are pure, but at any rate, she’s gone, and he needs her. “At least we have each other.”

This is just another shaft to Maze, though. “I’m always going to be the consolation prize to you. You only care about me when you can’t have Chloe.” Lucifer seems shocked by this and tries to interject, but Maze is done. “No — no one puts me first, least of all you. None of you deserve me.” She walks out of the penthouse and off to a bus station, ready to leave everyone and L.A. for good. A heartbreaking, beautiful scene worth watching over and over, stellar performances by both actors.

Pierce stops her and proposes they work together. He says he’s not going to pretend to be her friend, but he says he can help them both get what they want. She looks at him with intrigue, no longer getting on the bus … and the episode ends.

The teaser for the next episode — which will air in three weeks — shows a disheveled and distraught Lucifer desperately chasing after Chloe and Pierce as Pierce and Maze scheme, and Chloe, from the looks of things, still has no idea what’s going on. It’s the spark and sizzle and dream we’ve been waiting for all season, the final phase of the characters’ growth, the explosion of tensions and, possibly, dare we dream, the beginnings of Deckerstar finally coming to some fruition.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

There’s literally so many things lying on the ground to knit together I’m on the edge of my seat, and I’m psyched because there are also so many new story and character branches to send off into a new season, if we can get the network to greenlight it. Which brings me to something I keep wanting to mention. If you’re not on Twitter Monday nights while the show airs in your time zone, you need to be. The actors shift between the East/Central and Mountain/Pacific show times and descend into the hashtag #Lucifer and #RenewLucifer to engage with fans, answer questions and make their own commentary on the show, often interacting with one another. There are also fans from the entire globe showing up to get the hashtags to trend and snag the attention of the show’s network and get Lucifer renewed. They have events and parties and contests and more, and this is only one social media’s actions. There’s more on Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook. The love for this show runs so deep.

It’s easy to see why. The characters feel real — they are real while you’re watching. They’re taking such a fantastic journey this season, and I’m eager to finish this character-rich arc. I’m also ready to celebrate the announcement of season four. Let’s hope by the time I come back for the next recap, we get to do that.

See you next episode.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

We’re back in the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness tonight. I hear Our Dead Guy of the Week is, too. Ruh roh!

I’m catching this episode via spotty Wi-Fi with no DVR backup this week, so what follows is my down-and-dirty, drive-by recap. Let’s dive in and I’ll try to at least hit all the high points!

Wilmer Valderrama as Torres and Sean Murray as McGee in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

We open with our team in said Orangey Bull Pen, ruminating over the manuscript of Ducky’s upcoming book. They’ve been tasked with reading the rough draft to give Ducky constructive edits. Bishop and McGee are all about it, amazed by some of Ducky’s exploits. Torres … not so much. He’s waiting for the version that comes with pictures and diagrams. Oh, Torres. Enter Gibbs, but there’s no dead body or grab your gear, so it looks like everyone will have time to read Ducky’s pages. Well, that is until there’s a sudden boom from above, then a body lands on the opaque skylight overhead. Ruh roh, indeed!

Cue awesome opening theme song and credits!

Up on the roof, we learn our DGotWeek is the A/C repairman. Apparently, a power surge in the unit killed him. Also up on the rooftop. Torres finds a little hidden break room nook, complete with chair and umbrella. Bishop and McGee are surprised by the discovery, too! No word on who set it up. Guesses, anyone?

Down in the Bull Pen, who should stroll in? It’s Senior!! (Hello, Tony’s dad!) He’s just back from a cruise with Judith. We hear he’s been to Paris to visit Tony and his granddaughter, who calls him the same thing my kids call my dad — Pop Pop! Senior is there to meet Gibbs for a drink, he has some news to share, but now we have a dead body on the roof, and things are happening, Senior’s attempts to discuss his story are thwarted by the whole dead body on the roof thing, so he ends up settling for a raincheck and goes down to talk to Palmer.

In the meantime, we learn that the HVAC company the DGotW worked for was fake, as was his ID, but he somehow made it past security and was cleared as being in the system. And, of course, the cause of death wasn’t a faulty power surge. No, we learn from Abby that the cause of death would be the pipe bomb AC Guy carried right onto NCIS property and up on the roof. The same bomb that went off before he could set it off. Fade to an Abby and Bishop black-and-white.

Sloane and Reeves meet up in the chaos that is the NCIS HQ being evacuated as they await the bomb squad to search the building for other possible explosive devices. Reeves heads off to help an NCIS employee on crutches to get outside. Sloane heads upstairs as she spies McGee going into MTAC.

Gibbs and Vance surprise no one by disagreeing on who should stay inside the building. (Vance wants to stay, he wants Gibbs gone. Gibbs is staying if Vance is staying. You guys. You’re so cute and predictable like that.) They discuss how AC Guy was cleared via the system and managed to get the bomb by the security dogs. They don’t know how, or what the specific intended target was. Gibbs takes a call from Torres and leaves without giving Vance a definite yes or no on whether Gibbs and company would be leaving the building.

We learn that all evidence has to be moved to the secure facility in the downstairs garage, per new protocols that were put into place after a previous incident. Bishop helped to write those protocols while at NSA and Palmer is grousing to Bishop about it as he helps Abby by picking up some evidence in her lab. Abby’s lab and the morgue have their own secure storage, so he feels it’s unnecessary. Recognizing that Palmer is actually upset about something else entirely, Bishop gets him to reveal what’s really bugging him. Turns out that Senior stopped by Ducky’s Digs to inform Palmer that he was dropping out of the Sherlock Consortium, the private, mystery-loving, case-solving private club that Palmer had helped get Senior into. He’s not sure why Senior is leaving, as he knows the elder DiNozzo really loves the group. That’s where he met the love of his life, Judith, and has been so happy. While they are talking, Major Mass Spec starts beeping with results from AC Guy’s fingerprints. Turns out he has a criminal record.

Pauley Perrette as Abby and Robert Wagner as Senior in the NCIS season seven episode Flesh & Blood. (Photo: CBS)

Abby and Senior are down in Ducky’s Digs. She’s come to see Palmer, but he’s up in her lab to see her. Senior is waiting for Palmer to come back as well. Abby sees the old-fashioned magnifying glass Senior is holding, commenting that Palmer has one just like it. Turns out it’s the membership card to the Sherlock Consortium. He tells Abby he’s considering leaving the group. She’s saddened by this and Senior starts to tell her his story, only Abby asks him to wait. She spies AC Guy still on the table and asks Senior for help getting him into a drawer before they are evacuated. Senior, as you can imagine, is underwhelmed by this request, but gamely puts on a white lab coat so as not to get extraneous dead-guy matter on his lovely cashmere sweater.

Upstairs in the way upper levels of NCIS HQ, Torres explains to Gibbs that AC Guy got on the roof using a ladder outside, but then takes Gibbs into a janitor’s closet and shows him that AC Guy managed to get inside the building as well. Gibbs finds a dummy cannister that he used to carry who knows what inside the building. They also find discarded coveralls that prove AC Guy was not working alone. Torres comments they might want to get back downstairs and get their weapons, when the lights in the room flicker off. The two head out on a search for the other intruder, or intruders.

Bishop and Palmer are still in Abby Lab. She has a printout on AC Guy and tells Palmer that AC Guy has a long criminal record of drug use and selling drugs, but nothing close to terrorism. The lights flash off and on, then suddenly fritz out, as the power grid shuts down and locks them inside the lab.

Up in MTAC, McGee has determined that there were three guys cleared via the phony HVAC company to enter NCIS HQ, but when he goes to pull up security-cam footage, the computer system goes on lockdown. Vance directs Sloane, McGee and the one computer tech with them to leave MTAC so they can access the information some other way, but then the lights flicker in MTAC as well, and the power goes down there, too, locking all of them inside MTAC, with minimal backup lighting and functionality.

As we rotate to each location where our Very Special Agents are currently located, we’re back with Senior and Abby, who are in the morgue when the lights flicker and go off, trapping them inside. The doors to the elevator are jimmied open and one of the other intruders enters, carrying another dummy canister. Abby asks him who he is, and he opens the fake side of the canister and pulls out a gun. He tells her he’s the man in charge and aims the gun at her. We fade to a startled Abby, hands raised, black-and-white.

We come back to MTAC, where McGee has realized that someone has hacked into the NCIS system and the only way to do that is from the inside. No cameras, no Internet, and cellphones are jammed as a precautionary measure to keep them from being used as detonation devices, so they have no way to communicate with anyone outside the building. Vance directs McGee to try to get back into the computer system.

Reeves is stuck outside after helping the fellow employee on crutches out of the building. He’s determined to go back in, but the woman in charge of the NCIS React team is equally determined to keep him out until the bomb squad arrives. She is certain the team members still inside would communicate with them if they needed anything. Really? She’s the one who activated the cell jammers, as per protocol. How, exactly, are they supposed to let them know?

We finally get back to the morgue, where we learn the guy with the gun is AC Guy’s brother. Gunman wants one of them to go with him. Senior plays the hero by pretending to be Ducky. He’s wearing the white lab coat and he uses Dr. Mallard’s name, which Gunman confirms by looking at Ducky’s nameplate on his desk. Senior dismisses Abby as an intern who will be of no help to Gunman. “Look at how she’s dressed,” Senior tells Gunman, assuring him she’s clueless and will not be helpful to his mission, whatever that is. When Senior assures Gunman that Abby will be no trouble, Gunman levels his gun at Abby again saying she sure won’t be. Senior steps between them, shielding Abby, saying that’s not part of the deal. Go, Senior!

Brian Dietzen as Palmer and Emily Wickersham as Bishop in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Torres and Gibbs discover Gunman #2 prowling around the Bull Pen, blocking them from getting to their desks to retrieve their weapons. Torres assures Gibbs he can get to his desk and his gun. Gibbs tries to tell him to stand down, but Torres insists he’s got this, then pulls his very bad Arnold impression out, telling Gibbs he’ll be “right back.” Oh, Torres.

We scoot back over to Palmer and Bishop locked in Abby Lab, as Bishop tries to figure out a way to short-circuit or cut the locking mechanism to the lab door to get them out. Meanwhile, Palmer has been doing some digging through the info that came back on AC Guy before the power went down and discovers that AC Guy has a connection to a drug kingpin in Baltimore. The same drug kingpin involved in a case that the NCIS team was just put in charge of — that gives them their first major clue as to why AC Guy got himself inside the NCIS HQ. But what the specific reason is, they still don’t know. In the meantime, Bishop’s and Palmer’s efforts to short-circuit the locking mechanism end up killing Major Mass Spec instead. Oh no!

In MTAC, McGee figures out that if the intruders (Gunman #1 & #2) stuck around after the pipe bomb went off and the building is under lockdown for an investigation, they still have something to do. And they must have a way to communicate with each other. Since they can’t communicate via cellphones, given the signals are jammed, they must be communicating via radio. So McGee manages to patch them into that frequency, in hopes they can overhear something that will clue them in to what is happening, and where the intruders are in the building. Sloane is super edgy and Vance walks over to her. She tells him she doesn’t like cages — another reference to her backstory — and Vance assures her they will get out of there.

Down in the Bull Pen, enter Torres, dressed as a janitor, shimmying his way into the bull pen while pushing his cart, jamming to the Latin tunes on his phone. Heh. Gunman #2, who is popping pills, spies Torres and starts yelling at him to stop. Torres pretends to take this in stride, saying go ahead and write him up for ignoring the evacuation, but he’s got a job to do, making it appear he assumes Gunman 2 is an NCIS agent. Torres works his way closer and closer to his desk as he continues his running commentary to Gunman 2 about how just because he’s not an agent, doesn’t mean his job isn’t important. Gunman 2 keeps yelling at him. Enter Gunman 1 with Senior in tow, preventing Torres from getting his gun. No Abby, so we’re not sure what happened to her, but apparently Senior was successful in getting Gunman 1 to leave her behind. We hope!

Gunman 1 immediately figures out that Torres is an agent and decides to take him, too. He directs Gunman 2 to cuff Torres with his own cuffs. Still popping pills, Gunman 2 calls Gunman 1 by his first name, which angers Gunman 1 further. Gunman 2 tells Gunman 1 to back off, that he’s there to ensure Gunman 1 and his brother do the job right. G2 tells G1 if he wants the job done right, to back off. Gibbs is watching from his hiding spot all along. Gunman 1 tells Gunman 2 to search the rest of the desks for guns. Torres mocks Gunman 1 for thinking they can use the elevators while on lockdown. G1 says they won’t be for long. He instructs G2 to make sure Torres was alone and to check the drawers for guns.

McGee finally finds the right radio frequency as G1 instructs someone to turn the elevator back on, which that someone does, proving the gunmen are somehow controlling the system from the inside. McGee realizes that he can figure out where they are controlling the grid from by looking in the system for the last place they logged in. The computer tech who is stuck in MTAC with them is trying to source that information but having no luck. McGee kindly asks her to move aside so he can take a crack at it. She’s not enthused by his taking the upper hand, but she moves to the other side of the room. McGee logs in and finds his way to the source … then realizes it’s the very terminal they are on. Computer Tech Girl is in on the caper! He and Vance turn just as Tech Girl pulls her own gun. Sloane dives and takes Tech Girl down, then tells Vance they have a mole problem. Heh.

Reeves is still outside dealing with the stubborn NCIS React team leader. They’ve figured out that there are two other intruders inside and argue again about storming the gates versus waiting for the bomb squad to arrive. NCIS React Leader wins. Again. Oh, Reeves.

In the garage, Senior apologizes to Torres for the whole mess, saying he could have handled it better. Gunman 1 puts the two of them into the garage evidence locker. He wants them to retrieve all the evidence for the drug kingpin trial. Torres realizes that G1 either works for the king pin, or his now-dead brother owes the kingpin a lot of money. It seems it’s Door Number Two there, but the end result is the same. G1 plans to destroy that evidence in exchange for getting his brother out of debt. Only bro blew himself up, so … Apparently, Gunman 1 still needs to complete the mission. Torres spies G1’s Army tats and G1 says loyalties change. Torres says his hasn’t and tells G1 he can “suck it” before he’ll help him. Senior tries to intervene and G1 rams him in the gut, prompting Torres to intervene. G1 mocks Torres about his loyalties and Torres says fine, he’ll help, but leave Senior alone.

In Abby Lab, it appears Bishop’s attempts to bypass the circuitry on the door has fried everything in Abby’s lab. An offhand comment from Palmer leads Bishop to consider trying to get them out via the windows that are high up on the far wall. He tells her they were reinforced after a previous incident and would take a pipe bomb to get them out. Bishop lights right up with that idea. Palmer, not so much.

Brian Dietzen as Palmer in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

The rapid pace story continues to jump from location to location, as we build toward the story climax. (Nicely written, Show, and nicely directed, Rocky Carroll, aka Vance!) G2 is still ransacking the bull pen looking for weapons when he hears G1 ask via the radio for the computer in the evidence locker to be turned back on. This enrages him as he wonders why they are still down there. Up in MTAC, Sloane and Vance question Tech Girl, but she’s not having it. The computers all shut down because of a code she put in, which she smugly refuses to give them. Meanwhile, G1 keeps asking her via the radio to turn on the evidence storage room computer.

In the storage locker, Torres, who is handcuffed to a shelving unit, figures out that the pipe bomb on the roof was supposed to be dropped down the air circulation vent directly to the evidence room, to blow up the evidence. Plan B was to get Torres and Senior to help G1 steal it, but since Tech Girl isn’t turning on the computers, that’s not happening. Torres wonders aloud what Plan C is. G1 says he’s not going to like that so much and wanders off looking for the evidence boxes in question. Torres starts looking for a way to get them out of there, while Senior finally tells him the reason he came to NCIS to talk to Gibbs. Senior confesses to Torres that Judith has dumped him.

In the Bull Pen, an increasingly agitated and hopped-up G2 is still searching the place for weapons and being thwarted by his attempts to break into the locked desk drawers. Then the printer goes off. Then on the opposite side of the place, another printer starts going off. G2 calls out, wanting to know who is there, and we see the bat that Gibbs keeps in his desk cubicle.

In the storage locker G1 is getting flammable liquid out of a storage bin, while Senior tells Torres that while they were on their cruise, Judith was cheating on him with a younger man, their cruise director. Torres is sympathetic, though he’s never been dumped himself. Natch. Senior asks him how is that possible, and Torres tells him it’s a gift. While G1 is off splashing flammable liquid on the pile of evidence he’s culled from the shelves, Senior asks Torres about Bishop. Torres tells him there is nothing between him and Bishop, then asks Senior if he’s heard something, or better still, did Bishop say something? (So, we’re really going to try and force TorBish to be a thing? Do we have to?) G1 lights up the pile of evidence, then exits the storage locker, leaving Torres and Senior behind.

In the bull pen, the printer is still going off, and G2 spies a knife stuck into the PRINT button on the copier. (Heh. Gibbs, of all people, using technology to disorient the gunman is funny. Nice touch.) G2 doesn’t take the knife with him, because now other sounds are going off, phones being left off hooks, and he keeps searching for whoever is in the room with him. Losing it, he starts shooting up the equipment, demanding whoever is doing this to show himself. Gibbs walks up from behind and takes G1 down with a baseball bat swing to the head. He takes G2’s radio and immediately calls out to the React team, who begins mobilizing. Gibbs heads behind his desk to get his weapon, but is stopped when G1 enters the bull pen. He says Gibbs has complicated his exit, and now he’s going to fix it. Fade to black-and-white.

In MTAC, Sloane is doing an analysis on Tech Girl, trying to determine why she’d risk her career to help the intruders get into the building. Much to Tech Girl’s smug dismay, Sloane totally nails her reasons, figuring out that Tech Girl is a disgruntled employee who is stuck in her position, her salary not increasing, getting more and more frustrated by being undervalued, so she takes the bribe. TG tells them no one was supposed to get hurt and she had no idea about the pipe bomb. Unfortunately, when she locked down the computer system, she didn’t build in a backdoor for them to turn it back on again. Now who’s the genius?

Down in Abby Lab, Bishop is indeed making a pipe bomb. Palmer is alarmed both by the fact that she’s doing it, and by the fact that she knows how. We see React team members and Sloane entering the building.

Brian Dietzen as Palmer and Emily Wickersham as Bishop in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Meanwhile, Gibbs is taking G1 up on the roof via the same way they got in. It’s the one exit that doesn’t have an entire phalanx of agents with guns trained on it.

The fire is burning in the evidence room. Senior dismantles the magnifying glass that was the Sherlock Consortium member ID and gives the handle — which turns out to be a hidden tool — to Torres to help him get out of the handcuffs.

McGee, Sloane and Vance pull the entire computer tech station away from the wall. Shutting down the system to reboot it could end up wiping out all the data, but McGee doesn’t see any other way of restoring it and the power grid to the building. He pulls the plug. Downstairs Torres and Senior are getting out. Up in MTAC, McGee puts the plug back in … and it works! McGee gets the computer online and gets the fire alert from the garage evidence locker.

Torres gets Senior out as the sprinkler systems cut on. Senior says he has to get Abby out of the morgue. Oh yeah, Abby! The React Leader and Reeves discover G2 and call for an EMT as all the systems and lights come back on. Sloane and Vance are coming down from MTAC and meet Reeves and React Leader as they all converge on the bull pen. There is no sign of Gibbs. Vance checks and Gibbs’ gun and the radio are still there, so they know there’s been foul play. Sloane joins Reeves and React Leader and they head to find Gibbs.

Up on the roof, as a chopper closes in on the building, the lights momentarily blind G1. Gibbs jumps him and the two tussle. Gibbs manages to knock G1’s gun away and it skitters across the roof, landing between the two sunroof units. G1 breaks free from their wrestling and runs to the gun. He turns and fires into the dark, but Gibbs isn’t there. He turns and demands that Gibbs show himself. Gibbs tosses a piece of pipe through the sunroof, then walks up behind G1 and calmly says how that won’t be necessary. Which proves to be true as Vance fires up through the hole in the sunroof pane and takes out G1. Who happens to topple through the sunroof … and lands right on top of Gibbs’ desk. “That’s some nice shooting, Leon,” a smiling Gibbs calls down to Vance through the now gaping hole in the sunroof. Heh.

Brian Dietzen as Palmer in NCIS. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)

Reeves, NCIS React Leader and Senior race down to Ducky’s Digs to rescue Abby, who had Senior lock her into a morgue drawer to keep her safe. They are worried she’s suffocated, but turns out she was just sleeping to try and use less oxygen. Being as she sleeps in a coffin, it was no big deal. Oh, Abby. Just as she wakes up and asks what she missed, there is a loud explosion.

That explosion … Yeah, turns out Bishop’s pipe bomb did the trick. Blew the window in Abby Lab to smithereens. Bishop and Palmer congratulate themselves … right as the power comes back on and Vance strides in. Taking in the complete annihilation of the lab, he calls out to make sure they’re OK. They sure got some ’splaining to do. Bishop tells Vance the destruction was for the good of the case. Vance says he believes her, but he’s not so sure Abby will.

The next day Torres and McGee are in the bull pen as workers are taking out and replacing desks and other damaged equipment. Torres asks McGee if they’re sure the workers are legit and McGee says they had to undergo full cavity searches at the gate. (Ugh, TMI?) McGee tells Torres that the fire did destroy all of the evidence on the kingpin trial, and Torres is bummed to hear that the drug kingpin might not go to prison, while one of their own, Tech Girl, will go down for treason. Torres, who knew TG by name, natch, says how she was always nice to him. Of course she was. McGee tells Torres that it was TG who gave them what they needed on the kingpin, who will now go to prison for a lot more years for terrorism than he would have for his drug cartel business.

Enter Senior with two women on his arm, also natch. It’s Abby and Bishop. We get the tail end of Abby regaling Senior with how it was the gunmen who trashed her lab and wasn’t that terrible. And Bishop is all, yeah, so terrible. Oh, Bishop! Senior has invited the entire gang out for drinks that night. Torres is on board. Senior wants to invite Gibbs, too, but no one seems to know where he is.

Cue the break room hideout on the roof. We see someone reach in the box for some jerky. Gibbs situates himself in the chair under the umbrella, Ducky’s manuscript in hand, and settles in for a nice quiet read. Oh, Gibbs!

We fade to our final black-and-white.

Well, that was a slam-bang episode, wasn’t it? I liked it! What about you?

We’re one step closer and getting closer still to the season ender (sob!), and we’re all waiting to see what happens with Abby’s exit story. (Thank goodness it wasn’t her ending up dead in a morgue drawer.)

One thing you don’t have to wait for is to find out who the winner of the Very Special Giveaway is this week! Come on down, Mary Bisciaio! Mary gets a copy of my June 26 release, Bluestone & Vine, before anyone else (even my own mother!) gets her hands on it. Mary, drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with your address and your prize will go right out in the mail to you.

Let’s keep the exclusive fun going! My publisher has kindly made another advance copy available, so I’m putting it up for grabs. Want in? Drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with “Pick me for Bluestone & Vine!” in the subject line. If you want to gab a bit about this season and where you think we’re heading in our season finale, I always love reading your thoughts! (I don’t get to reply to each and every one, but I do read them all! I love hearing what you are thinking!)

I’ll announce the winner in next week’s recap. See you back here for episode 19, Numerical Limit, where Gibbs ends up providing protective custody to a 10-year-old. That should be interesting!

Until then …

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C. politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts

We’re heading into the end run for season 15. In tonight’s ep, Gibbs ends up providing protection to a 10-year-old. So, you know we’re definitely in for a good time!

Let’s get right to it!

Mark Harmon as Gibbs and guest star Lily Rose Silver as Elena in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

We begin with some kind of back-room fight club as two guys have at each other until one can reach the crowbar that’s been provided for extra entertainment value and beat the daylights out of the other. It turns out to be a fight to the death when one of the guests observing this blood sport pulls a gun and shoots the loser. The winner (and I use that term loosely here) is shocked at this turn of events, but relieved that, hey, thank God he won. His relief is short-lived, however. As is he.

Cue awesome theme song and opening credits!

Bishop and McGee (who’s whole evolution-of-grooming thing this year has reached the point where he only needs a smoking jacket and a pipe to complete the ensemble) enter the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness to start their day with Bishop annoyed by being ma’am’d at the coffee shop and dead bodies falling through the ceiling sunlights (see last week’s episode). So she is way over having any more drama in her day. We all know how that’s going to work out for her. Karma pays a quick house call straight off when Bishop learns that her cover story to keep Abby from knowing that she and Palmer are to blame for blowing up Major Mass Spec has already started falling apart and it’s only a matter of time before she tracks it to Bishop. Enter Gibbs, who laughs in the face of lying to Abby to cover for Bishop, which would be kind of hard for him to do anyway since he hasn’t been in a scene with Abby since sometime back in season 14. But they’ve got two bodies to deal with, so grab your gear and we’ll get back to this storyline for comic relief shortly.

At the scene of the crime, we learn that the fight was going down in a privately owned record store. Owned by the dead winner. Turns out the two-time loser is a lance corporal, but we don’t know anything more. Meanwhile, McGee is pumped because he found a record from his childhood about this bunny who lives in a treehouse. “And solves crimes,” interjects Gibbs. McGee says no, the bunny had this vegetable band that — “Solved crimes,” Gibbs interjects again, and McGee is forced to admit that, yeah, it was the Yummy Bunny crime-solving series. HA. Enter Palmer, who immediately sees that Lance Corporal Loser has multiple scars, many of them old, and Gibbs notes the gang tats. Bishop says LCL’s military ID comes up with nothing to match it in the database, which means that, ID notwithstanding, Loser ain’t no Lance Corporal. Torres finds a stash of materials for making fake military ID’s, and we learn that the holder of such an ID can get onto any military base in the country. “In the world,” Gibbs notes. Houston, we definitely have a problem. Fade to a smoking-jacket-less McGee black-and-white.

Back in the bull pen, we’re at the Screen of All Knowing, hearing how Dead Winner, the record store owner, also had a long history of fake ID making. Two Time Loser, not a lance corporal, but instead the member of a gang who runs drugs and hires themselves out as hit men. So a three-time loser, then. More than 10,000 members in more than 15 states, this is no fly-by-night gang. Gibbs is familiar with them, saying, “We’ve met,” then sends Bishop downstairs to talk to Abby about what she might have from the evidence that was collected. He heads out and Torres cracks on how they’ll never see Bishop alive again, and she laughs off that Abby knows about the role she played in MMS’s demise. After she leaves, Torres says he’s going to miss her. Heh.

Guest star Alexis Carra and Emily Wickersham as Bishop in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Down in Abby Lab, she is doing a full post-mortem on MMS and can’t make Bishop’s story work that MMS went kaput when the bad guys blew up the power grid in last week’s episode. Bishop plays dumb, and Abby seems none the wiser, but vows to get to the bottom of it. Bishop, right there was the moment you man up and own your truth and suffer the consequences of your actions. Only then we wouldn’t have a subplot. We move on to learn that Abby was able to pull an image from the film used to apply the photos to the fake ID’s and gives Bishop the name and location of the man who got that ID. He’d used the ID only moments ago at the Joint Base Hanover Commissary.

That’s where we head next. McGee and Reeves are looking for Fake Marine Sergeant while Bishop and Torres are talking to Base Security. McGee and Reeves talk to the commissary worker who has clearly been over his job for a very long time. In between barking at kids misusing the drink machine and griping about pretty much everything, he has no cares left to give with the guy McGee and Reeves are looking for. He directs them to talk to the woman who is in charge of the out-of-control kids, telling them she’s been there for over an hour, so maybe she saw the guy.

She tells them she’s got 10 kids and only two eyes, but shows the kids the photos. No one recognizes him. McGee and Reeves learn that the 10 kids are unaccompanied minors who fled their war-torn and crime-ridden homes to come to the U.S. Some came alone, some came with parents who didn’t survive the trip. Refugee housing is at capacity, so they are using base housing for the overflow while the kids’ cases go through the courts. One of the kids comes forward and tells the woman he saw the guy in the photo taking photos, but that’s all McGee and Reeves get.

We shift to HQ with McGee relating this to Vance and Gibbs as they enter MTAC. On the even bigger Screen of All Knowing. McGee shows Vance a series of stills taken from base security cameras, all showing Fake Marine Sergeant taking photos in various locations of the base, but they haven’t figured out what he’d be taking them for. Vance presumes if FMS is part of the same gang, the photos he’s taking can’t be for any good reason. We learn the phone he’s using belonged to Dead Winner, and while McGee couldn’t track him as FMS has that turned off, he was able to hack into the cloud account and see all the photos he’s been taking. It doesn’t take them long to figure out that FMS is targeting one of the refugee kids, a young girl.

Gibbs and Bishop visit the refugee kids at the base housing. Gibbs talks to the young girl being targeted in her language and she does talk shyly to him. The woman running the program says she doesn’t usually talk to strangers. We learn that Young Girl and her mother fled Central America when gang violence forced them out, but only YG survived the trip. They found her in a boat, clinging to her mother’s body. Her father died long ago. YG hands Gibbs markers and they both start to draw. YG is drawing her mother. The program leader tells Bishop that despite her rough life, YG is a special kid, and it’s a shame that she will likely be sent back. Gibbs shows YG the photo of FMS, but she doesn’t recognize him. Gibbs says they will post guards at the door to the housing unit but is told YG will be transferred to a base near her court case, in North Dakota, the next day. Gibbs says that’s not going to work.

Guest star Alexis Carra, Emily Wickersham as Bishop and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

In the bull pen, Torres and McGee are trying to track down the real identity of Two Time Loser. The address on his fake military ID was also fake. Enter Bishop, Gibbs and YG. Gibbs has taken YG into protective custody. McGee tries to talk to her, but when Torres hears YG doesn’t speak English, he takes over, squatting down to her eye level and introducing himself. YG frowns and says something in her language, which makes Torres frown. Gibbs translates that YG wants to know why Torres’ shirt is so tight. HA.

Bishop takes YG out of the bull pen and Gibbs, Torres and McGee look at photos provided by the local law enforcement’s gang division that show FMS chatting with the east coast leader of his gang who is wanted in more than twenty murders. No one will testify against him. Enter Vance who says they have a bigger problem. The same day that FMS was on base, three crates of grenade launchers went missing. Which means the gang is arming themselves. McGee wants to know, for what?

In Ducky’s Digs, no Ducky this week (aw) but Palmer is talking to Dead Winner about immigration. Then he hears Ducky’s voice and yay, we get a very Dapper Ducky via, uh … Face Screen. Turns out Abby’s Future Replacement, aka Ducky’s grad student editor, set up the system when he was visiting so he could check in on home base from time to time. Palmer rolls the screen over so Ducky can give him an assist on the autopsies of Dead Winner and Two Time Loser. It seems that Two Time Loser’s teeth are turning translucent and falling out. Ducky’s never seen anything like it and clears his schedule for the day to assist.

Down in Gibbs’ basement, Bishop is talking to McGee over the phone about her amazement at how many burgers YG put away at dinner and how weird it was watching Gibbs make a bed. She ends the call when YG starts playing with Gibbs’ tools, but he enters and says it’s OK. Bishop tells Gibbs that McGee did some digging and found out the base is missing other weapons as well. She offers to take the first shift, but Gibbs says he’s got it. Bishop leaves. Gibbs talks to YG and sort of tricks her into speaking English. She shyly asks when he figured it out, and he smiles and says when her eyes popped wide when Bishop offered to go out and get cheeseburgers. Heh. Gibbs notices she understands how to use woodworking tools, and she says her father was a carpenter. She has gotten a small wooden box from her bag and tells Gibbs that her mother said her father made it for her. It’s a music box, but it doesn’t work anymore. She asks how long she has to stay, and Gibbs jokes and asks her if she’s got somewhere else to be. She says, “School.” He asks if she likes school, and she nods and says she’d never been before. He says someone did a good job teaching her to speak English, and she says it was her mother. A call from McGee interrupts their talk.

Turns out the reason Two Time Loser’s teeth kept falling out was because he overbleached them. (Ew!) McGee and Abby were able to track him down via the mail-order company that makes the bleach. McGee gives Gibbs the address, and the next thing we see is Gibbs, Torres and Reeves pulling up outside the house. Torres says it’s a great, out-of-the-way place to stash all those stolen weapons, and Reeves notes fresh tire tracks. They think maybe they just missed seeing the remaining occupants, but music coming from inside the place says otherwise.

Duane Henry as Reeves and Wilmer Valderrama as Torres in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Torres enters the place, which has plastic sheets hanging in all the doorways. He has his gun drawn and is looking around when Reeves and another guy come crashing through a door, battling each other. Torres watches Reeves and the other guy battle, asking if Reeves is OK. He says he’s got it, and they throw each other around some more. Then the other guy pulls a blade and Reeves tells Torres to go ahead and shoot him. Torres is enjoying watching them fight, so Reeves yells at him to shoot the guy as they continue to grapple. Torres finally picks up a piece of lumber and takes the other guy down with a single blow. Torres gives Reeves a hard time, Reeves said he had the guy right where he wanted him, and Torres asks if that was before or after the other guy put Reeve’s head through the wall. He stops when he looks through the hole in the wall and sees body parts. They break more of the wall off and there are three bodies, each of them wrapped in clear plastic, none of them in good shape … and I slowly push away my bowl of popcorn. Gah.

Sloane has a completely different reaction. We see the East Coast gang boss sitting in interrogation. Sloane enters the room behind the two-way glass and asks McGee if he could show her the crime scene photos of the dead bodies. She thinks they’re great and wonders if they have a motive yet. McGee says no, but they have the cellphone of the guy Torres knocked out, which shows he texted that same gang boss often. Gibbs enters interrogation and East Coast Gang Boss, a young, good-looking man, is all charm, telling Gibbs how he has all the respect for law enforcement. Gibbs lays out the photos of the dead bodies and asks him to explain why they were at his stash house. Gang Boss pretends not to know about any stash house. Gibbs says fine, they can start with the bodies found at the record store. GB smiles, asks who buys records these days? Undaunted, Gibbs says they can start with the weapons stolen from the base. He has photos of them, too. GB says he has absolutely no idea what Gibbs is talking about. So Gibbs asks him what on earth was one of GB’s “goons” doing taking photos of a kid and asks if he’s recruiting 10-year-old kids now. GB frowns at this, says he’s a simple man, leading a simple life. No idea what this is all about and he knows nothing about a 10-year-old girl. Gibbs smiles, says how he never said it was a girl. Ruh roh, GB.

So, naturally, GB starts taking off his tie, then begins unbuttoning his shirt. Gibbs just smiles. I would, too, but I don’t think it’s going to turn out to be that kind of show. GB’s unbuttoned shirt (no T-shirt? tsk tsk, GB) and rolled-up shirtsleeves reveal gang tats on top of gang tats. GB’s charming demeanor falls away as he tells Gibbs how he’s spent his whole life with men like Gibbs judging him. He leans in, says if Gibbs has something on him, then arrest him. His eyes take on a rather unholy gleam as he confirms that Gibbs doesn’t have any proof and tells him he never will. GB tells Gibbs he’s playing with the devil, that he has no idea what his gang is capable of doing. Gibbs listens, calmly, that almost-smile on his face. Because we know that it’s GB who doesn’t know who he’s playing with. But … we’re patient. He’ll learn soon enough. In the meantime, he tells Gibbs that anyone who gets in the way, even YG, will pay. Behind the two-way, Sloane and McGee wonder what the gang is planning and why YG could have any impact on their plans. McGee thinks YG would have told them, but Sloane thinks maybe she doesn’t know what she knows. I think we all know that YG’s daddy was in that gang, and the secret is inside the music box. Well, that’s what I think. We’ll see.

Sloane and YG are playing video game soccer in Sloane’s office. YG is winning and getting a lollipop per win. She suspects Sloane wants to ask her something, and Sloane compliments her on how smart she is. Sloane asks YG if she ever heard any gang members planning any kind of attack. YG says no. Sloane says that YG did know of the gang, though, and she nods, says everyone where she was from knew the gang. YG says her mother told her that the gang brought the guns and the guns brought the deaths. And the cavities. Sloane perks up and asks YG if she means cavities you get in your teeth, and she says yes.

Guest star Lily Rose Silver as Elena and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Sloane heads to the bull pen and shares her news. Turns out that the gang would have ice cream trucks come to the village and give away all their ice cream for free. The violence was always worse after the ice cream truck was there, and Sloane suspects that’s how the gang smuggled in their weapons. She has the name of the company and McGee looks it up. Turns out the company is based in Delaware, ships internationally and has a warehouse right by the military base where the weapons were stolen. Torres throws down Rule 39: No coincidences. Bishop is surprised Torres even knows Gibbs’ Rules. Torres says he was pretty sure knowing them was mandatory. Gibbs is ready to head out to the ice cream warehouse, but McGee says they have a problem. He tells Gibbs that the motion sensor he put on Gibbs’ front door went off, and someone might be trying to get in the house. Gibbs stops dead, turns to McGee and is all, “My what?” Then McGee stutters through his confession that he thought installing it would be a good idea, while Bishop, Torres and the rest of wince in the background. McGee says on further reflection, he might have wanted to ask first. In the words of Gibbs … Ya think?!? Gibbs puts Bishop and Reeves on the ice cream warehouse, tells Torres and Peeping Tim (HA!) to stay on his six, and they’ll talk in the car. Torres pauses by McGee long enough tell him that he knows McGee is smarter than that.

Gibbs and Torres go through Gibbs’ house. Gibbs finds YG’s music box on the floor of the basement, so he knows someone has been in there and knows Gibbs has YG. Enter Tim who says Gibbs’ neighbor — the one he likes (ha!) — recognized FMS as the one who broke in.

In the meantime, Bishop and Reeves find the stolen weapons at the ice cream warehouse. Cue to Abby in the back of the truck asking for an intervention between her and the tub of rocky road she is plowing through. McGee asks if they hid the weapons in the ice cream, prompting Abby to tell him that would be messy and McGee would make a terrible smuggler. Heh. The smugglers disassembled the weapons and hid them in packs of dry ice. Simply let the dry ice dissolve and bingo, there are your weapons. Bishop sees some kind of small box lying on Abby’s worktable and asks if it’s a detonator. She says no, it’s the keypad to her lab, and how she’s traced Major Mass Specs demise to that keypad. Bishop is all, oh, huh, imagine that. Abby vows she will find MMS’s killer. Back to the smuggled weapons: Turns out the weapons have all been disabled, permanently. Abby got DNA off the inside of the RPG’s and discovered the person who disabled them is FMS. Hunh. Didn’t see that coming.

Back in HQ, Bishop enters to tell Gibbs that Abby has confirmed that every one of the weapons has been disabled. Bishop has to be the one to tell this to Gibbs, because, well, you know. (Yes, I get that there is a very specific, behind-the-scenes reason why these two don’t film scenes together any longer, and that is both sad and very unfortunate, no matter the cause. But just schlepping along like it’s not odd when their relationship is one of the hallmarks of this entire 15-season series, like no one will notice, is equally awkward. Not to mention it leaves a huge, gaping hole where there was once a lot of love. You have work-arounds at your disposal, like Ducky via screen in tonight’s ep, but apparently those are off-limits, too. Of course, I guess it will only be an issue for a few more episodes, and then you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Not cool, Show. Not cool. And not particularly cool for the actors involved either. Be the professionals you are, or why stay at all?) Ahem. Back to the matter at hand. The team still can’t track down FMS, and they have no clues on why he would go to the trouble of stealing the weapons, only to disable them. Bishop says ATF has the ice cream company on lockdown and nobody is talking. They’re all afraid of Gang Boss. McGee asks Gibbs if he wants them to give the questioning a try.

Guest star Alexis Carra, Emily Wickersham as Bishop, Mark Harmon as Gibbs and guest star Lily Rose Silver as Elena in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Enter Sloane and YG, with Sloane asking if anyone is going out for burgers, because it’s late and she’s got a hungry girl on her hands. YG notices the photos of FMS on the Screen of All Knowing. She recognizes him as the ice cream man from her village. She remembers he had longer hair and he scared her. She ran away and hid, but that’s all she remembers. Gibbs gets Bishop to see if FMS was ever a driver for the ice cream company.

At Gibbs’ house later that evening, Sloane comes in with the ice cream company records and two bags of burgers. Only to find Gibbs seated on his couch, digging into his second one. He tells Sloane that YG crushed four of them. They go upstairs and see her sprawled half in and half out of the bed. “Burger coma,” says Gibbs. HA. They go in and Gibbs gets her tucked into bed. It’s a particularly poignant moment, given Gibbs lost his daughter, no matter how long ago that was. Sloane kind of steps in it, saying, “It must be hard having a little girl in here again.” So that means YG is in Kelly’s room. She was 8 when she was killed, so more poignant still. Gibbs just stares down Sloane, as do we all. Then she says, all helpfully, “You must have some good memories, though, Gibbs.” He remains silent, and she kind of shrugs and goes on about the case. I get that she’s the profiler-who-shoots-from-the-hip in this scenario, but that seemed really ham-handed, even for her.

Sloane tells Gibbs that they can’t make any connection between FMS and the ice cream company, not by name, and not via his photo. She says he could be halfway around the world by now. Burger coma or not, I kind of wish they’d take this conversation outside YG’s bedroom. Gibbs says FMS is not gone, and Sloane asks why not, and our burger coma girl proves me right by waking up and saying, “Because of me.” She asks them if FMS is after her and if that’s why she is staying with Gibbs. Gibbs says they don’t really know that, and she says she does. She thinks he wants to punish her for what she did. YG and her mom had only one life jacket and her mom made YG take it. She wanted her mom to wear it and just hold her, but her mother insisted. YG says her mother is dead because of her. Gibbs tells her that none of this is her fault. Sloane redeems herself by sitting beside YG, hugging her, telling her that her mama did what mamas do, they protect their children. Sloane tells her they will protect her, too, and Gibbs solemnly tells her no one will hurt her. She looks up at Gibbs, and he tells her, “We won’t let anyone hurt you.” She nods. Then asks if they can have hamburgers for breakfast. Tough kid, talking about her mom dying, which just happened, then burgers, almost in the same sentence. (And I get that this would not be entirely improbable.) Gibbs notes that the window in the bedroom is unlatched from the inside. He asks if Sloane did that, and she says no.

Guest star Alexis Carra, Emily Wickersham as Bishop, Mark Harmon as Gibbs and guest star Lily Rose Silver as Elena in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

We hop back over to Ducky’s Digs, where Ducky is waxing on about how stashing bodies in structural places has a long history. Palmer is face-palming, so we suspect that the whole “Ducky can hop in via Face Screen anytime” thing has already worn out its welcome. McGee enters to get an update on the three bodies found behind the wall. Ducky hands the update to Palmer to give, then talks over him, until Palmer finally goes behind the monitor and pulls Ducky’s plug. Heh. Palmer tells McGee it appears the men died by a malfunctioning RPG that blew up in their hands. A piece of shrapnel suggests that they tried to replicate the spring mechanism that had been cut to disable them in the first place. Neither McGee nor Palmer can figure out why the bad guys would disable the weapons, then try to get them back online. The chat ends when Gibbs calls McGee, asking for all hands on deck.

At Gibbs’ house, they set a trap for FMS, who clearly left the window unlatched so he could come and snatch YG during the night. McGee, Gibbs and Torres corner him. Gibbs tells FMS he hasn’t had that window open since 2004. FMS seems very concerned that he hasn’t found YG. Something else is up, and considering he was the one to disable all the weapons, I don’t think his intent was to harm her, either. Torres says she is safe where he can’t hurt her and FMS asks them why they think he’d want to hurt his own daughter. So, Daddy’s not dead after all. Mama must have just told YG that rather than tell her he was part of the gang? We’ll see.

In interrogation, FMS tells Gibbs he did not belong to a gang, that he’s a carpenter. Gibbs says he is one, also. FMS says his wife left him six years ago and he hadn’t seen his daughter since. He safes he came to the U.S. so he could send money back to help get his daughter out of the slum, to a safer place. Then every place became unsafe. He said he heard his wife tried to get their daughter out, but … He pauses, shakes his head, then says he had to get his daughter before they sent her back. Gibbs says he could have gone the proper route instead of working with the gang. He said they’d have both been sent back to El Salvador. He drove the truck for the gang from a spot in D.C. to a spot in Virginia in exchange for getting on base. Gibbs points out they were trucks full of guns. He tells Gibbs he made sure those guns would never hurt anybody. He said Gang Boss found out what he did, killed the two men who had vouched for him, getting him the job, then put out a hit on him and YG.

Guest star Luis Jose Lopez, Sean Murray as McGee and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Gibbs and McGee wait at a church service for one of the dead men to intercept Gang Boss. Gibbs comments, “There’s the simple man, living the simple life.” GB says he’s there paying his last respects. McGee says, “To a man you killed. That’s edgy.” HA. GB taunts them for being like hungry pigs at a trough, but says they will go away hungry. Gibbs says not this time. There are uniformed men at the back of the church and in steps FMS. Gibbs comments on how they now have someone who will testify against him. GB goes a bit pale. McGee says the pigs are gonna eat as he cuffs GB. Heh.

At HQ, we learn that Gang Boss will go away for the murders of the two men who vouched for FMS. Vance says that FMS’s future is a little less clear. He has no legal status, but he is a witness in a murder trial. Gibbs says he’s a hero, and Vance reminds him that he falsified government documents. McGee reminds Vance that he disabled all those weapons, and Vance says that’s why it’s complicated. Bishop and YG are coming downstairs to the bull pen. Gibbs takes her music box to her, says it just needed a little oil. She turns the handle to play the music and smiles. Enter FMS and Sloane, who stand, a distance away, as FMS gets his first look at his daughter since she was 4 years old. Overcome, he tells Sloane that they told him his daughter thought he was dead. Sloane tells him she knows the truth now. Bishop tells YG she’s going to miss the hamburgers. Heh.

The team steps back and YG’s father steps up. He kneels in front of her and she is silent and very wary. She looks to the team, then back to her father. He slides up his sleeve and shows her the triangle with the heart tattoo on his arm, the same one she’s been drawing the whole time. He explains that each side of the triangle represents one of them, her, her father and her mama. He hands her a folded photo of him, his wife and YG when she was little, asking if she remembers that day. It was the last day he saw her, the day he gave her the music box. He hands her the photo and takes the music box. He turns the handle to play the music and sings a song, his voice hoarse with tears. YG watches intently, and she remembers that day. She tears up, calls him Papa and hugs him. He holds her and cries. And it’s possible I might have a little something in my eye.

Sloane is touched by the scene and looks to Gibbs, who looks … stoic, maybe a little haunted. Bishop tells McGee that it’s “one hell of a happy ending,” and McGee says some days he really likes his job. McGee looks to Gibbs, asks him if everything is OK. Gibbs says no and asks what happens now. We shift back to father and daughter hugging, crying. And fade to black-and-white.

As a commentary about our current policies, which this surely is, it’s a stark one. And on that, well done, Show. Now, could you please move a few mountains on that other situation we talked about above? We’ve got only a handful of episodes left.

That also means we have only a few giveaways left. Last week I put up a signed, advance copy of my upcoming June 26 release, Bluestone & Vine.Thank you for your enthusiastic entries and comments on the show and the recaps. I enjoy them all. The winner this week is Loreena Keech! Loreena, drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with your address, and your prize will go right out in the mail to you.

We’re off next week, but will return on April 17 with episode 20, Sight Unseen. Will this begin the story arc that gives us our big Abby goodbye?

I know I’ll be tuning in to find out, and I’ll be sure to give you the full rundown.

Until then …

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C., politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts

This is me remembering my mantra for my TV viewing year: look for the fun. Embrace the fun. Sit back and enjoy the fun. Still with me? Great. ’Cause I’ve got some fun suggestions to lighten up your screens.

Sam, Dean, Scooby and Shaggy in the Scoobynatural episode of Supernatural. (Photo: The CW)

If you didn’t get a chance to catch the Scoobynatural episode of my all-time-favorite show, Supernatural, do yourself a favor and check it out. Leave it to my go-to program to remind me that after 13 years, a show can still surprise you and leap out of the box! Such good fun and homage paid to one of my favorite cartoons. Seeing that Mystery Machine parked near Baby filled my heart with geek joy, and Dean in a night dress? Well worth the wait (still giggling over that). The hype completely paid off for this fan. Thank you once again to the writers for “getting it.” Now if only the CW would pick up Wayward Sisters as a spinoff, we’d be just about perfect.

Did you know it’s midseason-show time? Well, it is. And two have caught my attention.

Alan Cumming as Dr. Dylan Reinhart and Whoopi Goldberg as Joan Ross in Instinct. (Photo: Jeff Neira, CBS)

There are a handful of actors I will watch no matter what. Alan Cumming is one of them (Oops! I lied. I didn’t watch The Good Wife). I just find him incredibly entertaining, and his new show, Instinct, is a great showcase for him. He’s having a ball, and it shows. Is Instinct anything new? No. It’s a procedural and, to my mind, a cross between Bones and Castle. I like the deeper dive into the psychology of the suspects and perpetrators, and there’s something about that twinkle in Cumming’s eyes that just makes me happy.

I love that the character of Dylan Reinhart (like Cumming himself) is openly gay, and guess what? It’s not a big deal at all (Yay! Progress!). He’s married to a bar owner, has a somewhat secret past as a CIA operative and, OK, is more than a little full of himself. Eh. So’s Elementary‘s Sherlock. Boy, would I love to see a crossover with those two. I would like to see the Instinct writers ease up a bit and not have Reinhart try so hard to steal the spotlight. He’s already in it. Like I stated above, it’s nothing really new, other than the fact that, where so many shows are dark, dreary and downright depressing, this one is a bit of brightness for me. I have a feeling it won’t last long (sadly), but how I would love to be wrong.

Ilfenesh Hadera as Kay Daniels and Jack Cutmore as Cameron Black in Deception. (Photo: Giovanni Rufino, ABC)

Another midseason show hit the airwaves around the same time (if not the same night). Deception is one of those shows that was made for me! Frequent readers of this blog know I’m a sucker for con stories — heist artists, thieves, sleight of hand, you name it, I LOVE it (Now You See Me is still one of my favorite movies, as are two-thirds of the Ocean movies). This show combines all of the above with a fairly unique motivation for the main character, Cameron Black. And we know I’m all about motivation. The supporting cast also includes one of my favorite character actors, Vinnie Jones. Again, Deception is a procedural, because apparently that’s what networks produce in abundance these days (sigh). A disgraced magician teams up with the FBI to help them solve cases in exchange for helping him find the woman responsible for putting his twin brother in prison. Will this show change the world? Nope. Is it entertaining? Yep. And that’s enough for me. A nice surprise.

Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman. (Photo: Niko Tavernise)

Speaking of surprises, note to self: When everyone you know raves about a movie, believe them and go see it. Until last Friday, I was one of the few who hadn’t seen The Greatest Showman. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hugh Jackman, love musicals, and I had no doubt this was a movie spectacle that needed to be seen. My problem is time. I just don’t get a lot to spend at the theater these days (darned deadlines, LOL). But last week they had a one-night sing-along version of the movie, and my best friend was dying to go to. Oh. My. God. I can’t remember a time I walked out of a movie ready to burst into song. I loved everything about it (happily, there was goal, motivation and conflict to satisfy my writer self), but mostly it came down to the way it made me feel: hopeful and joyous.

Is it an accurate depiction of P.T. Barnum? No. We all know he wasn’t exactly altruistic (and they touch on that in the movie). While in real life his motives were anything but kind, for these few hours, amidst the songs and dancing and beautiful sets and costumes, escape from ordinary life is most definitely possible. I’ve got the soundtrack playing in my office as I type this (I bought the CD … when was the last time I did that?!).

The Greatest Showman is out on DVD next week. I’d already preordered it (defying my own rule about never buying a movie I haven’t seen before). Now having seen it, Tuesday can’t come soon enough. If you haven’t seen it yet, or are on the fence, trust me, it’s worth it. Just sit back and enjoy.

Back to TV and what else I’ve been watching. Finally, the Rowan Atkinson version of Maigret went live on BritBox, and it did not disappoint at all. Known for his comedic performances, it shouldn’t have surprised me that the popular actor was more than capable of holding down a serious, investigative drama. His quiet intensity was astonishing and proves how talented the man really is. There’s a very fine line between comedy and dramatic genius, and Atkinson walks both without a wobble. Looking forward to the next two episodes (hopefully soon!) as much as I am the return of Shetland (season four will be streaming in April). I’m rewatching the first three seasons of this now and feeling as if a vacation might be in order. Stories and interesting characters aside, that scenery and cinematography are simply sublime and the perfect picture postcard for a not-so-known destination.

Did I cover enough? Whew, I think so! We’re heading into the summer movie season, beginning in just a few weeks with Avengers: Infinity War. I am, however, completely irritated that they moved the release date up a week to the end of April. I won’t be able to go until the next weekend, which means I’ll be dodging spoilers and Internet news for days. Ah, first-world problems, right?

Happy viewing, everyone. Thanks for spending some time with me.

And, as always, happy reading!

A geek since birth, USA TODAY bestselling romance author Anna J Stewart began her life-long obsession with TV and movies back in the ’70s with shows like Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman, but Star Wars, Stephen King and Nora Roberts made her want to be a writer. Her latest release is Always the Hero, the fourth in her Butterfly Harbor series for Harlequin Heartwarming. Read more about Anna and her books at www.authorannastewart.com.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Anna’s posts

Heidi Cullinan

We’re heading into the final five episodes of the season, which means things are seriously heating up on Lucifer. This episode takes us on quite the ride, both for its twists and turns and its devilish fun. There are some heartwarming — and heartbreaking — moments in this one, too. So let’s get to it.

The show opens with a woman coming down the stairs with a bat, calling 911 as she investigates a disturbance; a man in a ski mask appears with a gun, but as she falls to the floor, she also sees an angel’s shadow as the door opens, and then the man is gone.

At the precinct, Pierce takes Chloe into the evidence closet, where they basically get it on. In the room next door as the walls shake and things fall off the shelves, Ella nods and smiles and says, “Oh, yeah, get some, Decker.” Deckerstar shippers around the world despaired in unison, I’m sure — I missed the show on Twitter because my Internet died for the entirety of the evening, but I can pretty much imagine it. Hold tight to this, though, because we’ll come back to it.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

At the crime scene, Lucifer begins to tell Chloe about his evening when Pierce comes out of the car with her and, as Lucifer says, ruins his banter. Important about this, though, is that Lucifer continues his story still, only in a condensed, annoyed way, and reports that he didn’t have sex with anyone, which is unusual. Note this role reversal. Lucifer, who has been doing people for three seasons, often several at a time, is celibate while Chloe is the one having her first sexual partner since Dan. In traditional romance “rules,” this is a record scratch; however, this is a rule that deserves to be broken, and this is the best way to do it. What a lovely switch around. The only niggle is that we know Pierce is lying to Chloe and her heart will get broken, but for one, it wouldn’t be in character for Chloe to have the kind of meaningless sex Lucifer does, and two, more is yet to unfold with Pierce.

The point here is, well done, Lucifer writers, once again. Talk about seriously understanding your audience and your characters.

Lucifer wants to know if Pierce will be coming along to their crime scenes from now on — Chloe tries to explain, no, it’s just this one time, and ends up making awkward subliminal sexual confessions as well. Pierce struts in like a rooster, gives out information about the case, that the victim is from a wealthy family. Lucifer notices the “DNA” on Chloe’s shirt, a tag from the evidence room and a leftover from her illicit liaison.

After some lighthearted ribbing from Ella, Chloe gets the lowdown on the victim and the scene at large: He’s from a wealthy family, but he had a heroin addiction, which was why he was living in such a low-rent neighborhood. According to Ella, the track marks on his arm are mostly healed and indicate he was trying to get clean. She also reveals that though the victim died of a gunshot wound in a home invasion, the killer took nothing else. The homeowner reveals that after she heard Kevin arguing with the invader and came to see what was going on, an angel flew in, chased the intruder off and took one of her angel figurines, the one of Gabriel. She even has a picture of it in an album so they can see exactly what was taken. Lucifer says that’s impossible, Chloe laughs it off, but Pierce, once he and Lucifer are alone, asks, “Seriously, is it one of your brothers?”

Lucifer says absolutely not, then takes a call from Amenadiel and ends up at Lux, where Amenadiel is having second thoughts about telling Charlotte angels are real. Lucifer doesn’t care about that, but he double-checks to make sure there aren’t other angels in town. Amenadiel says no chance, not unless it was a bored or deeply confused angel. Lucifer laughs … then walks into his bedroom and kicks over the angel figurine the homeowner has just shown him a picture of.

Rachael Harris as Linda in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Naturally, Lucifer takes his concerns and the figurine straight to Linda, who pushes him to consider that it might be possible he was the one who did this. Could he be doing heroic angel work in his sleep, acting out his frustrations over Chloe’s relationship with Pierce? He insists he’s not so immature he can’t accept Chloe’s choice in a partner even though he doesn’t like them together. He knows he’s not that angel, and he’s going to prove it.

Pierce and Chloe have had a lovely time in her apartment, but she kicks him out before Trixie comes home because she’s not ready to introduce the two of them. Pierce begins to lose his temper, then controls himself and says he’s in for the long haul, fast or slow. Before Chloe can respond, her phone begins getting a series of increasingly intense notifications from Lucifer, and she runs off.

Lucifer’s emergency at the precinct, however, is that he wants to work on the case right now and prove the woman didn’t see an angel, most specifically it wasn’t him. He needs the killer for that. She of course doesn’t fully understand what he’s talking about, but goes along with it. They interview a man who was gone during the time of the murder, but the man is unwilling to talk and uncaring that Kevin is dead. Lucifer, not interested in waiting, uses force to pressure the man into admitting he was with a prostitute the night before and had no contact with the victim, and certainly doesn’t know anything about any angel. He shares that Kevin was annoying because he legitimately wanted to get clean and get his family back. Chloe is upset with how violent Lucifer was and wants him to talk to her and admit what’s wrong. When he won’t, she tells him to go home and rest. He says he will, but he takes her handcuffs as he goes. As he settles in to sleep, he handcuffs himself to a heavy statue with an equally heavy chain.

When he wakes, his handcuffs are broken, his hands are full of soot, and Amenadiel is holding a paper with an article about the Angel of San Bernardino, who saved a family from a house fire. Amenadiel thinks this is his fault because he revealed divinity to Charlotte, but Lucifer just thinks this is manipulation in general from his father. He decides he needs more proof, so he goes to work to get it.

Ella catches Pierce on the phone to Chloe and gives him some comfort because she can tell Chloe hasn’t said the magic “three little words” to him yet. She assures him they’re coming, but also warns him that people like the two of them fall hard when they fall. “Don’t worry,” she tells him. “She’ll say them. When she does, everything will change.” “I’m counting on it,” he tells her.

Kevin Alejandro as Dan in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Charlotte, meanwhile, has been running around the precinct telling everyone exactly what she thinks about them, no more being nice or holding back. She takes Dan away with her with a wicked look in her eye.

Chloe and Lucifer go to interview Kevin’s former lover, who had a son with Kevin and had almost married her. She did drugs with Kevin, but she quit first. She’s with Jeremy now, who answered the phone whenever Kevin called, usually asking for money. Lucifer declares the visit a complete waste of time.

Charlotte is hitting it off completely with Dan, getting him drunk and telling him stories about how she’s been telling people off. She tries to get him to cut loose with her, but he’s reluctant, at least until she lures him into a closet naked. Unfortunately, he gets naked first and she’s late, and he gets discovered by the bar owner, who threatens to call the police.

Lucifer is getting more and more impatient with how long it’s taking to find Kevin’s drug contacts because of the way his family has been covering up his drug habits. When he tells Chloe he can’t go home and sleep because he might turn into the Angel of San Bernadino again, she tells him, “Then don’t sleep.” He thinks this is a brilliant idea.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

We get, then, one of the most delicious and hilarious sequences in the show’s history: Lucifer’s attempts to keep himself awake as long as possible with varying techniques. Later, we’ll learn this takes place over the span of a week, but for us it’s about a minute of debauchery, drugs and random Lucifer id. He downs energy drinks with dancers, plays with a red tricycle in various ways, gets slapped around during sex, has some fights, takes all manner of pills, cleans and then, very importantly, watches TV — specifically, every season of Bones. When he finally returns to the precinct, he’s tripped out like crazy and quoting the show and confusing it constantly with reality. “It’s basically a documentary of us,” he tells Chloe. “Riveting stuff.”

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

The Lucifer writers were gushing over it on Twitter as well. I went back and checked. Guys. If you were on the fence as to whether or not you were in good hands with this crew, I rest my case.

Chloe also has a conversation over the phone with Maze, where Maze repeats the same “any speed, fast or slow” line that Pierce gave her, and Chloe pauses, feeling like she’s heard that before, but she doesn’t make the connection.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Chloe has surveillance video of Kevin getting arrested, and their leads take them to where Kevin’s dealer is doing a job. They want to pressure him to talk about any insight he might have about Kevin’s murder. It turns out the man purported to be the dealer is giving the speech as the best man at someone’s wedding, but he’s supposed to be a doctor, which doesn’t add up with what they know about him. Lucifer, having a moment of revelation, says he’s seen the man before and is certain he’s the killer. They find the man in the parking garage, taking money from the groom; Lucifer confronts the best man, calling him a murderous drug dealer, saying he knows he killed Kevin, as well as the intern at the hospital, burning her body. Chloe, beginning to understand, asks Lucifer if he isn’t confusing the case with an episode of Bones. He is: This is an actor, who guest-starred on the show.

It turns out that the groom hired the “murderer,” Matt, to play as his friend at the wedding, and who also was hired to be Kevin’s friend, though not by Kevin. He was supposed to keep him out partying. He doesn’t know who, because it was all set up by the agency, Masquerading.

Pierce goes home and finds Maze waiting for him; she’s come to see if his mark has gone yet so she can kill him. His mark is still there, unfortunately. She wants to know if he wants pain or not when he’s ready; he says no, thanks, quick and clean is good. She points out that Chloe will suffer for sure, though. “Ruthless.” He says he doesn’t care who he has to hurt, so long as he gets to die.

Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Chloe and Lucifer are digging into the Masquerading agency, which is all about letting you have friends or family for a price at public or private events. Lucifer wants to go immediately, but Chloe says they have to wait for a warrant. He breaks down, and she takes him into the interrogation room and tries to get him to tell her the truth. She wants him to tell her she’s upset about her being with Pierce; he’s talking about his wings and potentially being an angel saving people in his sleep. She pushes, and he tells her the actual truth, that Pierce is Cain, that he’s immortal, that he’s trying to get rid of a curse — but of course she won’t believe him. She’s angry now, and she says Pierce is a good man, that she’s happy. She almost says she loves him, then stops and leaves.

Amenadiel finds Charlotte trying on expensive jewelry, and in talking to her learns she believes somehow that no matter what she does, Lucifer and Amenadiel will take her to heaven when “the time comes.” He explains to her that’s not how it works, that the only thing that matters is who she is, that nothing has changed. She’s upset, because the second she thought she had a free pass, she relapsed into her old ways, into who she really is. “There’s no hope for me. I can’t change. I’m going to hell.”

Chloe decides to tell Trixie about Pierce, and it goes very well; Trixie is excited for her mother and her happiness, and she’s eager to meet the person who is making her mother feel good. On her way to introduce the two of them, she sees a picture on the Masquerading website and recognizes the husband of Kevin’s ex-lover: He works for Masquerade.

Lucifer seems to already have figured that out. He’s in Jason’s house, and he confronts him. It turns out Kevin’s former lover hired him to give her a good-looking front to her friends and family, but then she fell in love with him for real. He killed Kevin to keep him from messing up his good deal. He thinks he’s going to kill Lucifer to keep him from doing the same, but of course Lucifer is not so easy to stop without Chloe around to make him mortal. What Lucifer really wants to know, though, is whether or not he was there as an angel that night. It turns out no, he was not. The woman saw a shadow and went into a religious trance, and Jason bolted. “I just wanted to protect my family,” Jason said, and Lucifer tells him it was never his family to begin with. “You hired someone to keep Kevin distracted, driving him to self-destruction—” and then he stops, realizing how his own life has been playing out the same way.

DB Woodside as Amenadiel and Tricia Helfer as Charlotte in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Chloe arrives to find Jason shaking in a corner, primed to confess the second she sees him. Lucifer goes back to Lux, trying to find the angel figurine so he can convince Chloe that Pierce isn’t who she thinks he is, that he’s been gaslighting him to keep him out of the way. Maze shows up in the middle of this, pours him a drink and persuades him to take it to Ella, but first to tell her everything without leaving anything out. Before he gets started, he realizes there’s no reason for her to be there, that she wouldn’t be kind to him like this — and she confesses she’s the one who’s been gaslighting him, trying to convince him he was the angel. He pushes past her, rushing to get to Chloe, hoping he can arrive in time.

Pierce is already there. He’s brought beer and chocolate cake — beer for Chloe, cake for Trixie, but Trixie isn’t there yet. Chloe is ready to let him stay overnight, to let Trixie see him. She says she’s done walking on eggshells. She’s ready to tell him how she feels about him, and she’s about to say the three magic words — and he stops her.

“I can’t do this,” he says. “You’re just making this too hard. It’s not worth it.”

“I’m not worth it?” she says, shocked and hurt.

“I have to go,” he says and leaves.

Lucifer arrives, but she’s already hurt. He stays long enough to see this, then drives off to Pierce’s place, where he kicks in the glass door and punches him to the floor. “Why? Why did you hurt her? Why?”

“For the first time it was in my grasp, the one thing I always wanted. But I couldn’t hurt her like that,” Pierce says.

DB Woodside as Amenadiel in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

“You hurt her plenty,” Lucifer says, “and now I’m going to hurt you.”

“You do what you have to do,” Pierce says. And that’s when Lucifer notices that Pierce’s mark is gone.

All right. Several things.

I’m not even surprised that this is how Pierce lost his mark, though I’m glad it was like this and not through some drawn-out battle. We remain in our character-rich season, with the plot twists and the dynamics all about choices and identity rather than bombs and death. Also, I really, really love how this moment of clarity by Pierce changes what had been him using Chloe into him sacrificing for Chloe — she’s still hurt, and it’s still raw, and he doesn’t deserve to be with her, but it makes her moments of “get-some Decker” more bittersweet than uncomfortable.

What I would like to see is Chloe’s character begin to truly evolve. Of everyone, she’s the most static, the most locked down, the one who is still like a gem everyone else reacts to rather than a dynamic force who changes with her peers. I’m hoping the last five episodes, where the writers keep saying, “Everything will change,” brings us some change for her, too. She’s so overdue and deserves to be more than the trophy others want. What we know about the next episode from the previews is that for now, that trend will continue: Pierce wants to court Chloe for real, and Lucifer wants her to choose him. Maybe that will mean a dynamic Chloe sequence is ahead?

We can hope. We’ll find out next week, at any rate.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

We’re coasting toward the end of season 15. Wah! But there is a bright spot on the distant horizon. NCIS has officially been renewed for a 16^th season. Huzzah! The question is, who will be left to carry the load? Abby is on her way out. Ducky is an occasional guest. Lots of staff changes the past few years … And yet, still pulling down the biggest ratings of any TV drama, so … not a surprise about the renewal.

Tonight marks the 350^th episode of our favorite very special agents in action. I was hoping for the Abby story, but I understand from one of his tweet’s today that this episode is a very special to one Wilmer Valderrama, aka Agent Torres.

Let’s find out why, shall we?

Sean Murray as McGee and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

We open with a high-speed chase between a county sheriff and an SUV that we never see. It’s dark and the sheriff in question is transporting a suspect but takes off after the SUV. He calls it in, is told someone else will pick it up, but the sheriff continues the chase, saying the vehicle is swerving and a danger to others. The suspect in the backseat is freaking out at the high speed they are going, yelling at the sheriff to slow down. Sheriff calls Suspect by name and tells him to calm down.

We shift to an adult brother/sister pair who are camping next to a lake, either having a very late or very early breakfast over the campfire. They hear sirens and Brother just barely pushes Sister out of the way before the sheriff’s cruiser comes plowing through their campground then goes airborne, right into the lake. Sister tries to race into the water to help, but Brother holds her back. They watch as the car goes completely under.

Moments later Sheriff surfaces as a fishing boat on the lake comes closer. The guy manning the boat asks Sheriff if he’s OK. He says there’s another guy down there and dives back under the water. Brother/Sister watch, alarmed, from lakeside.

Cue awesome opening theme song and credits!

We’re in the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness and Palmer is passing along some of his daughter’s hand-me-downs to McGee for his young one. Very cute. Enter Bishop, who is on the phone with Commander Buckner. We recall Buckner from an earlier episode this season as the guy who Bishop and Torres dealt with on a case that took place on board. He was Bishop’s nemesis back in school, but by episode’s end, they became friends. Or at least not enemies. She passes along Buckner’s hello to Torres, who gives a “yo yo” back and explains to McGee who Buckner is and how he and Torres ended up as buddies. Come to find out, though, that Torres thought when Bucker came to town they’d be going out for an epic night of carousing, only it turns out Buckner has already been in town for a few days and the only person he called was Bishop. In fact, the two went out to dinner the night before. She claims it was a “just friends” evening, but Torres thinks it sounded more like a date. McGee comments that Torres sounds jealous, but they agree that Buckner called her, they had drinks and dinner, and he paid. Enter Gibbs, who says it sounds like a date to him. Torres says, “Boom,” and, smiling, Gibbs adds, “Yo, yo. Grab your gear, bro.” And I die on the floor laughing. HA! Also? Never do that again, Gibbs. Yo yo?

Lakeside, they are towing the car from the lake. Our Suspect is still handcuffed in the backseat. Palmer opines in a bit more detail than is necessary about what an awful way that is to die. Bishop agrees to help him get the body out of the backseat. Meanwhile, Gibbs takes the statement from Sheriff. He is going to be OK, but he’s definitely shaken up about what happened. He explains to Gibbs that he was pursuing a drunk driver and lost control of his vehicle. He tried to get Suspect out of the back, but could not get the door open. Bishop talks to Brother who called the car-into-the-water moment a “total Dukes of Hazzard,” which is actually entirely accurate. He confirms that Sister tried to go in, but he stopped her.

Sister, a redhead by the way (we always note that in this show), is over at the picnic table taking a business call. She ends it as Torres comes over to question her. Not Gibbs. Ah well. Incidental redhead, then. Torres extends his hand in greeting, but she ignores it. He shrugs that off, sits and asks a few questions. It doesn’t take long for Sister to realize that Torres doesn’t know she’s blind. I think we figured it out when she kept staring forward when Torres sat down. Caught off guard, he apologizes, and she smiles, asks, Why? He asks her why she would have tried to go in the lake, and she kindly explains that blind people can also swim. He’s caught even more off guard by her candor, and she laughs and says he can stop apologizing. Definitely on the wrong foot now, he apologizes for wasting her time and exits before he can stick his foot farther down his throat.

Wilmer Valderrama as Torres and guest star Marilee Talkington as Annie in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

Then they pull the car out of the lake and Palmer takes one look, says his work is done and heads out. Confused, Torres looks at the car. The backseat passenger window has been busted out and there is no body in the back of that car. Fade to a surprised Torres black-and-white.

We come back to the bull pen and Torres being all pouty that Buckner saw Bishop while in town but blew him off until the next visit, seeing as he was more Torres’ friend than Bishop’s. Enter Gibbs, and we shift to the Screen of All Knowing where we learn that no one saw Suspect surface, so Navy divers are still searching the lake for the body. He is young, engaged and didn’t have a record until the previous day when he was arrested for felony assault. Torres takes off to go check out Suspect’s apartment. Bishop is sent off to talk to Suspect’s commanding officer.

Enter Sheriff, who asks Gibbs and McGee if they’ve found Suspect yet. They tell him they haven’t. Sheriff comments on the guy in the boat who asked if he was OK, then motored off. They haven’t found him, either. They ask Sheriff if he got a plate number of the drunk driver, but he was only close enough to know it was a dark SUV. McGee isolated a question that Suspect asked Sheriff during their high-speed chase, which was recorded inside the vehicle. He asks if the chase had something to do with a Randall Peters. Sheriff doesn’t recognize that name. McGee thought it was the guy Suspect was arrested for assaulting, but that is a different guy. Sheriff says Suspect beat that guy so badly he lost a tooth.

We shift to Abby Lab as Reeves (’ello, mate!) enters to tell Abby he’s got something. (I’m not going to rant again this week about the lack of Gibbs/Abby scenes. See last week’s recap for my screed on that topic.) Reeves tells Abby they recovered Suspect’s phone from the lake and was hoping that maybe she could get the info off of it. She smiles sweetly as she takes it from him. She also has a box of donations for Reeves’ charity. Some clothes and some toys. Reeves pulls out a doll that would give Chucky nightmares and asks, rather dubiously, if that would be appropriate for a child. Abby strokes the doll’s hair fondly and says she slept with it as a child. Reeves says that explains a lot. Heh.

Bishop is talking to Suspect’s CO, who isn’t all that enamored of the young man. He was disorderly, often late to muster, and CO said he wasn’t entirely surprised about the arrest warrant. He also tells Bishop that for the past six months they’d had some issues with things missing from the armory. Not guns or ammo, but smoke grenades and flare guns, all low-priority items. He says they were about to call NCIS to look into it, as Suspect was their lead suspect in that situation also. However, now that Suspect has been picked up for another crime, he is not their problem any longer.

McGee and Reeves enter the family pharmacy where Fiancée works with her father. Father is behind the counter, and they tell him Suspect has been in an accident. Father is surprised and upset at the news. Fiancée comes in from the back, wiping away tears, leading all three men to think she already knows about the accident. Turns out that she’s crying because Suspect just broke up with her over the phone. Like, five minutes ago. Ruh roh. You can call off the search in the lake! Fiancée tells them that Suspect is at his apartment. McGee calls Torres and passes along that news.

At the apartment, we see Suspect getting his weapon out of a case and loading it with ammo. Then he climbs on the bed to unscrew an overhead recessed light. Torres bangs on the door, calls his name, then announces he’s coming in. Suspect is still trying to unscrew the bulb. Torres takes his time going through the front room, gun drawn, spies the bolt cutters and handcuffs on the counter. By the time he gets to the bedroom, Suspect is gone out the window. We hear an engine as he drives off. (Since when don’t they do these kinds of things in teams for exactly that reason?) Anyhoo, Torres notes the muddy footprints on the bed, looks up, then climbs up and unscrews the bulb. He reaches in and comes out with a fist full of money. More fistfuls start to cascade out of the opening. Fade to a continually consternated Torres black-and-white.

Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

In Vance’s office, Torres has counted the money. Over $26,000. Vance wonders if Suspect sold the flares and flash grenades he stole, but Gibbs says they wouldn’t be worth that much. They all agree that Suspect is on the run, considered armed and dangerous. We learn that the drunk driver and man-in-boat have yet to be found, but McGee and Bishop are working to find the person Suspect was asking about in that audiotape. They are also tracking down the assault victim. He has no permanent address but works in a bowling alley.

Enter Bishop, who says they got a call from Sister who says she has something that might be of interest. Torres says it’s a dead end, because what could a blind “eye witness” possibly have? Gibbs and I get annoyed with his attitude, and Gibbs rightly tells them to follow up anyway. Down in Abby Lab, she’s reduced the temps in the room to freezing to dry out the air in hopes of reviving Suspect’s phone. McGee comes in and shivers his way through her explaining all that. In the end, the phone does work, but it’s passcode protected.

We shift to Sister’s house. She’s putting a nail in the wall to hang a photo. The place is pretty dark, and then you remember that she wouldn’t exactly need daylight or lamps. Although the place is furnished with a lamp and the blinds and curtains are closed. She invites Torres in, and he comments on the dark. She laughs, says she forgets to do that and has her version of Alexa turn on the lights. Then she goes back to hanging up her frame. She says pictures on the wall are about as useless as lights for her, but this one is a braille version of a world map, which she thinks is pretty cool, and Torres agrees. He offers to help, but she’s got it. She hangs it, places a marble on top of the frame and shifts until the marble stays still, so she knows the frame is straight. Torres admires the trick, says it’s better than eye-balling, then apologizes, awkward once again. She tells him not to worry. He notices her framed law degree, is both surprised and impressed. She takes both in stride. He tells her he is there in reference to some information she had on the case. She says she does have information, but it’s not at her house. She smiles and asks him if he would like to take a field trip.

In the conference room, Sloane is interviewing Fiancée, who comes complete with a somewhat bombastic family lawyer. Sloane and I immediately do not hit it off with the guy. Ultimately, what we learn from the convo is that Suspect had a side business doing something that he told his fiancée she was better off not knowing about, so she never asked. She is shocked about the $26K because Suspect never had any money. She does know who the guy is that Suspect asked about in the tape. It’s his business partner, but she doesn’t know when or where they meet. She does give Sloane his phone password.

Down in Abby Lab, she and Reeves have just two tries left to open the phone. Enter Sloane with the combo that spells Fiancée’s name. That doesn’t work either. But a calendar alert comes on the phone, mentioning a pickup with Business Partner.

Wilmer Valderrama as Torres and guest star Marilee Talkington as Annie in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

Over on our field trip, they arrive at the place where Brother and Sister camped and get out. She explains to Torres that her blindness was a degenerative, genetic disorder and that she can see only shadows and shapes. She can smell the bacon grease from their camping trip and Torres asks if her other senses are sharper due to her loss of her visual sense. She says no, that she simply pays more attention to them. She asks Torres to close his eyes and listen, and tell her what he hears. He says he’s closed his eyes, she correctly calls him a liar. He smiles, then does close his eyes. What they end up hearing is the sound cars make when they pass over a nearby grate. Her information is that the night of the incident, she heard only one “thunk thunk,” not two. So where was the drunk driver?

We shift to Sheriff’s office, where Gibbs is asking him the same thing. Sheriff wants to dismiss their “evidence” based on the fact that Sister is blind. Gibbs reminds him that she hears perfectly well. Sheriff is defensive and in disbelief that they are questioning him. Bishop tells him that no one else called in the drunk driver and he said it was very early and no one was on the road. He’s all, “Why would I drive into the lake on purpose?” Gibb counters that it would be a great way to kill someone. Sheriff is more upset, claiming he’s the victim, and counters that Suspect isn’t even dead. Then, in disgust, says he doesn’t have to answer to them. Gibbs corrects him that he does indeed need to do just that. Sheriff asks if he needs a lawyer, and Gibbs replies, “I don’t know. Do you?” Just then a bullet shatters the glass of the Sheriff’s office window and takes the Sheriff straight down. Gibbs and Bishop hit the floor. Gibbs confirms that Bishop is OK, then moves, using the desk as a shield until he can reach out and check Sheriff’s pulse. He’s dead. Fade to black-and-white.

In the bull pen the next morning, Bishop and McGee discuss the shooting. Bishop thinks it was most likely Suspect who shot Sheriff. She says if Sheriff tried to intentionally drown him, then that would make the most sense. McGee agrees, but wonders why Sheriff would want to drown Suspect in the first place. We learn that they did track down the guy Suspect assaulted, who is on his way in to talk to Sloane.

Then we shift to Ducky’s Digs and GAH, seriously, give a girl some warning before you show her a guy’s intestines all up and personal like. I believe you’re doing your job — I don’t need to see the particulars. Pardon me while I set my popcorn bowl aside. We continue with waaaaaay too much detail on the screen, so I keep my eyes on the keyboard and do like Sister and just listen more closely. Palmer removes the bullet from Sheriff’s chest. It’s not a handgun bullet, and the only kind of gun registered to Suspect is a Glock. Also, there was a dark substance on Sheriff’s pants that Palmer sent down to Abby Lab. Gibbs thanks him and heads out, but we all know he’s not heading to Abby Lab. No, sir. Never there. Not that guy.

Up in the conference room, Sloane is talking to the guy Suspect earned his moniker for assaulting. The victim’s face is still swollen and black and blue, but he’s showing off the tooth that Suspect knocked out during the fight. The dentist wanted too much to fix it, so Victim drilled a hole through it and is wearing it around his neck (on dental floss, no less), like a lucky medallion. He’s quite cheerful about it. Ooookay. Sloane starts the interview, but Victim (we’ll call him Vic) wants to smoke. Sloane apologizes, but says he can’t. Vic is a little pouty about that, but Sloane perseveres. She relates that the report says that Vic was closing up the bowling alley when Suspect attacked him. Vic shrugs, says that is right. Sloane pauses, but when Vic says nothing more, she asks him why Suspect attacked him. Vic shrugs, has no idea. Did Vic know the guy? Another shrug, no. Did he steal anything? Nope. She asks Vic to explain how he could have identified Suspect as the guy who attacked him if he didn’t know him? Another shrug. Oh, Vic. Sloane shows him three photos and asks him to pick out Suspect. Vic hesitates. Sloane offers that she doesn’t think Suspect hit him at all. She thinks maybe it was Sheriff. Given the excessive reports he had in his file. Vic is definitely paying more attention now. So … bingo?

Yes, turns out Sheriff and Vic go way back. Vic has been arrested for possesion three times and he doesn’t want to go to jail, so he didn’t want to point the finger at Sheriff. Sloane opines that perhaps Sheriff caught Vic again and rather than send him to jail, he offered Vic a deal. Vic lets Sheriff beat him up, Vic claims it was Suspect who did it, and he is off the hook. Vic relives the beating, ducks his chin, then asks Sloane if he can have that smoke now. Vic. Dude.

Up in the bull pen, Bishop and Torres talk to Gibbs as they try and figure out the deal. Sheriff used Vic to set up Suspect. Sheriff arrested him, cuffed him in the back of the car, then pretended to be chasing a drunk driver, so he could drown Suspect in the lake. Only that plan backfired because Suspect didn’t die. And now Sheriff is dead … possibly by Suspect, who has the strongest motive. Unfortunately, the only connection they have found between Suspect and Sheriff so far is that they live in the same small town.

Enter McGee with a lead. The substance on Sheriff’s pants is the same substance found in smoke grenades and flare guns. So that would establish a connection between Sheriff and Suspect, only it doesn’t explain the $26K.

Down in Abby Lab, she transposes an image of Suspect’s thumb onto Palmer’s like-sized thumb and they use that as their last chance to unlock Suspect’s phone. It works! (Am I the only one who uses my forefinger for Touch ID? It would be weird to use your thumb, because the angle is awkward. Just me? Because that was a big risk, assuming it was Suspect’s thumb print. Ah well.) BUT!! HELLO! Finally, 20 episodes in, we get a “Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs” from Abby. It’s via intercom, and we all know her part and his part were taped at different times, but HEY, at least they are trying to establish a connection because the lack of one has been SO FREAKING GLARING. Ahem. And yeah, baby steps, and a lot too little too late, but hey, you’re trying, Show. So, there’s that. Back to the unlocked phone, there is no phone number for Partner, but there is an address.

Sean Murray as McGee, Wilmer Valderrama as Torres, guest star, Mark Harmon as Gibbs and Emily Wickersham as Bishop in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

Shift to Fiancée entering what looks like some kind of small, industrial garage. She calls out for Suspect. He emerges from the shadows. She flies into his arms, kisses him, asks him if he’s OK, and what is going on. He tells her he’s trying to protect her, that he got into something he shouldn’t have. There are sirens in the distance. He tells her he has to leave. She asks what they use the place for and says she smells chlorine. He says it’s bleach, used to destroy evidence. He tells her that until the day before, the place was used as a meth lab. Fiancée says it’s all freaking her out. He says he called her to meet him there to tell her the truth before he left. Enter McGee and Reeves, guns drawn, who tell Suspect they would also like to know the truth. Fade to a Reeves-looking-down-the-barrel black-and-white.

In interrogation, we learn that the smoke grenades and flare guns have red phosphorus in them, used to make meth. The nickname for that ingredient was the name the agents thought was Partner, but was actually the nickname Suspect gave to the product he was delivering. McGee says that his take is that Suspect’s CO called him out on the thefts, prompting Suspect to call his buyer and tell him he couldn’t supply the WP any longer, which ended up landing him in the bottom of a lake. Bishop says his lab was pretty sophisticated, and she doubts he was the one cooking the meth. He was the supplier, Sheriff was the protection … so who ran the lab? Who ordered Sheriff to kill him? Suspect says it wasn’t his fiancée, but Bishop tells him they don’t think it’s her. They think it’s her father.

Cue Reeves and Gibbs in the pharmacy while Dear Old Dad tries to talk his way out of this ludicrous claim they are making. He goes on about how he’s been the pharmacist there for more than 30 years. Reeves counters that that would make it easy for him to order large quantities of the other ingredients used to make meth without raising any alarms. The only problem is meth has nine ingredients and Dear Old Dad can order only eight of them.

Enter Flaky Family Attorney (what is up with that guy?) as the questioning continues. They ask if DoD was the one to shoot Sheriff, and Flaky says he doesn’t have to answer that, but DoD answers anyway that he doesn’t own a rifle. Gibbs asks if he likes to fish, and DoD says yes, and of course he has a boat just like the one used by Man-in-Boat, the first guy on the scene after the car went into the lake, who then magically disappeared. Flaky makes an annoyingly accurate statement saying that they don’t have any actual evidence on Dear Old Dad.

Cut to Vance’s office where he agrees and tells Torres and Gibbs to find some. They bring Sister into the room behind the two-way that looks into the interrogation room to see if she can ID the voice of the Man-in-Boat. The same man who called to the Sheriff that night on the lake to see if he was OK. Sister listens to three NCIS agents and Dear Old Dad say the same thing the man said that night, but she says it’s none of the four. Flaky is in the room with them but says nothing while she is there, so she doesn’t know he’s there. I think Flaky was the guy in the boat. DoD is too short. Anyway, Torres leads Sister out before Flaky says anything. Gibbs and Sloane are left, trying to figure out where to go next, how to get DoD to confess. Sloane says they won’t get Suspect to flip on his Fiancée’s daughter or Daughter to flip on DoD. Gibbs just smiles and Sloane realizes he has a plan.

Torres takes Sister home and they are talking about what she does as a lawyer. She helps to write the bills that are drafted and passed by Congress. He calls her a badass and she counters that he’s the one with the gun and the big biceps. Ha. He shrugs that off, but she says she’s held on to her share of arms and his are bigger than most. He says how they might be a decent size. Oh, Torres. She offers coffee, he declines. She thanks him for believing in her, he smiles and said she gave him no choice. She smiles in return and says how her work here is done. And Torres leaves.

Emily Wickersham as Bishop and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

In the pharmacy, DoD is going through the filled prescriptions and calling back to his daughter to bring out other items he needs. Instead, she comes out carrying a sheaf of papers and calls him out on the huge orders of drugs that they aren’t selling. He tries to play it off, but Daughter sees the writing on the wall. Finally, he tells her not to ask questions she doesn’t want the answers to, then breaks into a rant about the declining business and making no money selling prescriptions to “hypochondriac geriatrics.” Daughter is as taken aback as you can imagine. She accuses DoD of taking advantage of Suspect and trying to kill him. DoD fires back that the Navy was asking questions and he was worried that Suspect would rat the three of them out. (Three? Aha! So Flaky is involved!) Daughter says Suspect would never have done that. She opens her jacket to reveal the wire and adds, “But I just did.” Wow, wtg, Daughter! She calls for Gibbs and stares at her father in shock and disgust, saying, “I can’t believe it,” over and over. For his part, DoD is stunned speechless. McGee cuffs him, and Gibbs goes to Daughter, telling her he knows how hard that was. She nods, but says it was the right thing to do. Gibbs asks DoD the same thing, who is “the three of us?” But he figures it out and calls Torres.

Unfortunately, Flaky is already going after the only other person who can identify him: Sister. He rings the bell, she answers thinking maybe Torres has come back for that coffee after all, but it’s Flaky. She tries to slam the door, but he pushes his way in. She does recognize his voice as that of Man-in-Boat. She backs away, calls for her “Alexa” to turn off the lights. Flaky says he can hear her footsteps and calls for the lights to come back on, but she’s unplugged it. He turns on the flashlight on his cellphone and tracks her into the kitchen. She flings the coffee at him and runs, but he catches her at the door, throws her to the couch and tries to strangle her. Enter Torres, who takes down Flaky with those big, manly man arms of his. Well, the fists at the end of them, anyway. Sister is bruised and banged up, but will be OK.

We end at the diner with Bishop and McGee. We learn that it was Flaky who shot Sheriff. Enter Torres and Sister. They exchange small talk and Bishop invites them to join in. Torres makes meaningful eye contact with McGee, who suddenly remembers this thing he needed to talk to Bishop about in private. Sister thanks them for the invite, and maybe next time. Torres finds them a table a few booths down and they settle in. Bishop asks McGee what he wanted to talk to her about, and he explains that he just said that so Torres could spend time alone with Sister. Bishop frowns, glances to where they are sitting, sees Torres laughing, and says, “Like … a date?” She frowns. And we fade to our final black-and-white.

Another step closer to Torres-Bishop being a thing? Or a step back? You decide.

And you’ll have two weeks to do it. I know! Yes, we have another break.

See you back here in two weeks!

Until then …

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C., politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts

Heidi Cullinan

Last night’s episode was a ride, people. There were moments I laughed, ones I was nervous as hell, ones I ached and wanted to cry, and ones I got incredibly angry. It’s a carnival of feels, this installment of Lucifer, and I think it’s going to stay that way until the last moment of the season now.

Here we go.

The show starts off with the murder of the week, a ballet dancer rehearsing on stage, then getting strangled by the strap of a pointe shoe. This fleeting scene is quickly replaced by the one we ended with last week, Lucifer interrogating Pierce as to how his mark vanished. Pierce doesn’t know, but he speculates it was Chloe’s love that did it, as was his plan. He thinks that’s what makes them vulnerable. Chloe’s love makes Lucifer bleed, and now it’s allowed Pierce to die.

I’m highly skeptical of this theory, personally, since Lucifer is only vulnerable around Chloe, and Pierce is now vulnerable at all times, not only around Chloe. Either that, or it’s different for Lucifer because he was never human. In any event, I’m not sold.

The problem before us now is that Pierce has changed his mind and doesn’t want to end his life. Lucifer leaves him, happy because he doesn’t think he’ll see him again, but I think you can see where this train wreck is headed.

For now, Chloe comes in to work with her eyes red from crying, and Ella goes to Pierce to find out what in the world happened. Pierce says he was trying not to hurt her, but Ella isn’t having it. She wants to know what he’s protecting her from, but of course there’s nothing to protect her from anymore. So Pierce decides he’d like to be with her and grow old with her. He wants to win her back.

At the crime scene of ballet dancer Reina’s death, Lucifer is giddy over the idea that Chloe and Pierce have broken up, but does attempt to console her in his awkward Lucifer way. In the middle of this, though, Pierce himself shows up and announces he wants to win her back, saying he loves her. She doesn’t buy it, though, and says she needs more than just words.

They investigate Reina’s death, where the murder weapon — the shoe — was left behind, and it turns out it’s not the victim’s shoe, it’s the wrong size. Lucifer keeps making awkward “evil Pierce” references, and Dan makes it clear he’s Team Lucifer, but Chloe isn’t having it. She says this isn’t any of Lucifer’s business and he needs to back off because it has nothing to do with him. Except, since he can still be wounded near her, he knows she still loves him.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

He goes to Linda to get her advice, catching her up on Pierce’s situation. He decides, after using her as a sounding board, what he needs to do is get Chloe to choose him instead of Pierce, and before Linda can say anything, he rushes off. Linda wonders if she should have stopped him.

Yes, Linda. You really, really should have stopped him.

Mazikeen visits Pierce at the station when she gets a text from him announcing the plan is off. She is not pleased with this development, especially since they were so close to achieving their goals. It turns out the plan was to get his mark removed by Chloe falling in love with him, have Maze kill Pierce and frame Lucifer, thereby forcing him to take her back to hell in order to get the evidence and clear his name. Now the plan is over, thanks to Pierce. And Maze is highly displeased.

Except Pierce hasn’t told Maze that his mark is gone and that Chloe already loves him. This will obviously become an issue later. And now we have a furious Maze loaded for bear. Strap in, everyone.

Lucifer brings Chloe food and drinks, specifically a lemon bar, but it turns out Pierce has brought her a plate of homemade lemon bars as well. Dan, bless his heart, spits out the lemon bar when he realizes it was made by Pierce (as someone on Twitter said, he’s going to get #TeamLucifer T-shirts made soon), but the fact remains that Pierce one-upped Lucifer before he got started. Chloe wants to focus on the case, and they have a lead: It appears the shoe belonged to the victim’s understudy, now the prima ballerina.

They go back to the theater, where Amber, the understudy, informs them that Reina had been gone for a week, that they’d thought she wouldn’t be with the company anymore because she was taking a job at America’s Next Prima Ballerina, but she ended up coming back. Amber had an alibi during the murder, and she’s devastated at losing her mentor because she wasn’t done learning from her.

Chloe and Lucifer decide to investigate the TV show, but as they leave the ballet company, they discover Chloe’s car is full of roses, a gift from Pierce. Upset, Lucifer calls Amenadiel to the penthouse and asks him for help getting Chloe to pick him over Pierce. This is one of my favorite scenes in the show, because Lucifer asks, still in his distractedly self-centered Lucifer way, and Amenadiel simply, patiently says yes, because this is his brother and he believes this is his duty and his test. You feel the love, though, through the patience, plus DB Woodside is such a rock and a wonderful actor, and it’s such a glorious scene because of him. This is an incredible Woodside episode all around, though let’s be honest, we are well, well overdue for an Amenadiel-focused episode like the Mazikeen one we got this season. Something to put on the plate for season four, guys?

DB Woodside as Amenadiel and Tricia Helfer as Charlotte in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Anyway, Amenadiel is all in, especially when he hears Pierce is the Sinnerman. They need to find proof of that connection, and she’ll realize Pierce isn’t the man she thinks she is.

At the precinct, Chloe, Ella and Lucifer review footage from America’s Next Prima Ballerina, where the host, Myles Drucker, is berating his potential contestants while leaning on a cane because he lost his leg in a car accident and can’t dance any longer. Reina reneged on her agreement to host with him, which cost him a great deal of money, so he’s a potential murderer. They bring him in for questioning, but he’s disinterested and unwilling to talk until Lucifer whammies him; it turns out his leg wasn’t lost in a car accident and the prosthetic is fake, which Reina discovered by accident when he confronted her over a blackmail e-mail he received. She didn’t quit because of his leg but because he accused her. He had good reason, though, because it came from her e-mail address. The question is, who did blackmail Myles?

Now we start the best arc in the episode: Charlotte and Amenadiel as hellraisers for God.

Amenadiel finds Charlotte in a three-star hotel, swilling wine and wallowing in self-pity because she’s going to hell, again. He tells her he needs her to help prove Pierce is the Sinnerman, and she’s the only one who can help him, then get Pierce out of the picture. Amenadiel shares the story of Chloe’s special status and Amenadiel’s holy test, as he perceives it. When Charlotte is able to rationalize this as something that will help her get back into the good graces of God, she’s all in.

Lauren German as Chloe and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Lucifer, meanwhile, tries to woo Chloe, giving her an incredibly wonderful car, and for a moment he almost has her. You can see the excitement and softness on her face, and she’s happy to be with him, blown away by his gesture. And then he completely messes it up, saying this was all to best Pierce. He’s proud of himself, stuck in his boyish mode, and she’s hurt and exasperated and turns away from him.

The next morning, Chloe comes downstairs and finds Maze on her couch, here for her “mea culpa,” as she says, and ready to listen to Chloe’s frustrations over men. Maze offers to hurt Pierce back for her, but Chloe of course declines. She does let Maze know that Pierce is trying to win her back and that she’s confused. “How do you know when you can trust people?” she asks. Maze says it’s simple: You can’t. “People will always let you down.” You can trust pain, though, she says. While they’re talking, Trixie comes out, sees Maze and retreats again.

Dan has a lead on where the blackmail e-mail came from, an apartment registered to William Sterling, chairman of the board of the ballet, a married surgeon. Lucifer and Chloe go to check it out, though Lucifer arrives first (he’s let in by a neighbor) to try to help Chloe. He gives her a tour of the room, which immediately reveals itself to be a love nest for Reina and William. Then William himself arrives and confirms that yes, he and Reina were having an affair. He loved her, he says, and when Lucifer chides him for loving her and having a wife and two children, William says, “You don’t always get to pick who you fall in love with.”

At this, Chloe side-eyes Lucifer. Of course, Lucifer doesn’t pick up on this clue at all.

As for the blackmail, William doesn’t have any idea what they’re talking about, he says, and he insists he’d never hurt Reina. He didn’t think anyone else knew about their apartment, either, but now he’s not so sure. Someone must have gone into the apartment to use the computer.

Tricia Helfer as Charlotte in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Meanwhile, Amenadiel and Charlotte are on Pierce’s tail, using intel Charlotte got by bending the law. Amenadiel doesn’t like that, but Charlotte insists it’s all right because they’re working for God. They see Pierce doing shady deals, but they don’t have proof beyond pictures of him moving envelopes. Charlotte commandeers a stranger’s bike “for God” and chases Pierce down as he leaves the scene, but he picks up her tail and confronts her. She doesn’t blow her cover, though, pretending to seduce him now that he’s broken up with Chloe instead. Pierce turns her down, saying he’s in love with Chloe.

Ella finds the video on Reina’s computer of Myles without his fake leg, but they’re still waiting for further testing to find who might have used her computer. While they’re waiting, Pierce calls to invite Chloe over for dinner that night, and Chloe agrees. In a panic, Lucifer draws her away and says he wants to talk to her first, in private. He wants to meet her at his place in an hour, and when she arrives, she finds a romantic candlelit dinner waiting for her. He says it’s to help her make an appropriate decision about her future — their future.

She’s so soft at first, and Lucifer is doing so well, and it’s clear he could absolutely have her if he would just not be an idiot, but he blows it. “Isn’t this better than anything Pierce could do?” She starts crying, and Lucifer is confused and upset, but he can’t go the distance. “Why are you doing this?” she asks, and when he says it’s because Pierce doesn’t deserve her, she asks, “Who does deserve me?” he can’t say, “Me,” only, “Someone better.” She’s devastated, tells him he can’t have it both ways and leaves.

Dan calls before she can go, though, and they have the lead they’ve been missing: a reflection in the video, and they know the video was taken by the dancer opposite Reina in the company. He framed Myles, sent the e-mail, took the video and probably killed Reina — all to be with the understudy, Amber. When they go to confront Miguel, though, William is already there, having figured it out as well, and he has a gun aimed at Miguel.

Chloe and Lucifer try to talk William and Miguel down, but they’re also talking about and to each other, projecting their own tragedy of failed communication onto the fatal pair. “Don’t you see, he didn’t want to kill Reina? He tried everything to simply get her out of the way,” Lucifer says. “She was an obstacle to being with the woman he loved.” It turns out Reina knew Miguel was blackmailing Myles and was trying to get him fired, and he wouldn’t even be able to work in the same company as Amber.

“Why didn’t you just tell Amber how you feel, tell her the truth?” Chloe demands, and Lucifer suggests, “Because you were afraid she wouldn’t love you back?” Miguel says yes, that’s what it was, but Amber says she does love him. Except now it’s too late, because Miguel is a killer. “To think you could have had everything you wanted,” Lucifer tells him. “All you had to do was tell Amber how you felt, but you blew it.” He watches Chloe walk away and adds, aching, “And so did I.”

This was a wretched scene, but strap in, because we are not done with the pain. I ended this episode with a table-throwing GIF on Twitter, folks.

Tom Welling as Pierce and Tricia Helfer as Charlotte in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Pierce has an incredible romantic dinner spread ready for Chloe, but she doesn’t show. Charlotte and Amenadiel do, though, looking for Sinnerman proof. They can’t find it, to their frustration. Charlotte refuses to give up, though, because she doesn’t believe in too late, and she says you don’t quit when you’re doing God’s work.

Linda finds Lucifer at the penthouse and apologizes, saying she’s been struggling between her role as his therapist and his friend, and she’s sorry friendship won too late. Lucifer has come to the realization that Chloe wanted him to, but too late. She asks why doesn’t he just tell her how he feels? What’s in the way? He says it’s because God has a master plan to make them dance to his tune, but Linda says that’s an excuse. By not telling Chloe, he’s taking her choice away. She says no one really knows what God is responsible for. Everyone is guessing, even Lucifer. What he can control is what he’s doing in this moment, even now. She asks him, the devil, what does he truly desire.

“I want her to choose me,” he says.

“Then tell her,” Linda tells him.

Pierce is already at Chloe’s apartment, though. He tells her everything Lucifer should have said, says the words she wants Lucifer to say to her. He pulls out a ring, gets down on one knee and, as Lucifer watches from the window, proposes to her. And she says yes.

I don’t think for one minute this wedding is actually going to happen, mind you, but gah, was that a wrench to have at the end of such a roller-coaster episode. Well played, writers, well played, but ugh.

DB Woodside as Amenadiel in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Next week is going to be something else, no question. The whole end of the season can’t be anything but explosions, all emotional explosions, all character and feelings and, please, let’s have the next episode air right now?

Also can we have season four confirmed yet? The #RenewLucifer hashtag is still going strong, but a next season confirmation would go a long way to appeasing my pain while I wait for this engagement to end. Just saying.

See you next week.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

Heidi Cullinan

We’re getting down to the wire on this season, with this episode the first of the final three left to air. Still waiting on the network to officially renew as of yet, so keep up the #RenewLucifer pressure online. This week we’re following up with last week’s bombshell ending where Pierce proposed to Chloe and she accepted.

Before we get back to that madness, we begin with the murder of the week, this one taking place at a dog show. We’re backstage, to be precise, assistants rushing to get jewelry to dogs and find out why Cornelia, the next dog to go on, isn’t on deck. It turns out the answer to that last one is because her owner has been murdered and is lying dead in a pool of his own blood on the floor of Cornelia’s dressing room.

Cut to the precinct, where Ella is screaming over Chloe’s wedding ring and bursting with excitement over the prospect of planning a bachelorette party. The trouble is, Chloe is getting married in three weeks, and there’s just not that much time. Ella’s always dreamed of throwing one, though, because all she has is brothers. When Ella starts talking about theme and colors, though, saying they should match the wedding, Chloe starts to get overwhelmed. Talking to Pierce about the wedding makes her even more uneasy, and she wonders if they shouldn’t postpone the date because there’s so much to plan. Pierce suggests she take some time off instead, since she has so much leave stacked up.

Aimee Garcia as Ella in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Lucifer, meanwhile, is drinking in his pajamas (and looking fine, by the way) while Amenadiel insists this cannot stand, Chloe marrying Pierce. He wants Lucifer to tell her how he feels, but Lucifer says it’s too late. He needs to understand how Pierce has weaseled his way into her heart so he can undo it. Amenadiel wishes him luck with that and says in the meantime he’ll work on a plan that will actually work.

When Lucifer runs into Chloe at the precinct, he tries to give her a personality test, saying this will help him understand her. She ignores it because she’s going out the door for her time off, and he’s Dan’s partner now, as her cases have been reassigned. Their first case together is the dog owner murder, and all the way there Lucifer is trying to figure out why Chloe said yes, already driving Dan nuts.

As they arrive on the scene, Ella is there, ordering a penis piñata loudly on the phone for Chloe’s party. She gives them the quick and dirty details on the victim — Francis Hoffman, died of blunt-force trauma to the head, owner of the prize-winning mastiff Cornelia, who is missing, husband is on his way to be interviewed — then bugs out of there, as she has an important event to plan. Lucifer decides the way to understand Chloe is to take the lead and “be” Chloe during this case, further frustrating Dan.

The husband, Fredrick, arrives for the interview, distraught, talking about how upset he is that Francis was murdered, that it was their sixth wedding anniversary recently and they took a trip to Malibu. He shares a photo of the two men with their dog and speaks fondly about two men raising a dog together as parents. Lucifer insists he will find Cornelia and get justice for the man’s “slaughtered husband” because he’s empathetic and loves his job, that he cares. Dan pulls him aside and says, “I thought you didn’t lie.” Lucifer says he does care about finding out why the detective does the things she does, so it’s not a lie. Dan feeds Lucifer some better interview questions, and Fredrick lets them know about someone Francis argued with in a parking lot the week before. He didn’t get a name, but he got a license plate.

Tricia Helfer as Charlotte and Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Maze, having heard about the engagement, shows up in Pierce’s office, assuming the plan is back on. She’s brought her knives. Pierce tells her no, it’s still off because he’s in love with Chloe. He has his mark back, incidentally, though it peels away at the top when closely examined, and later in the episode we’ll learn it’s a temporary tattoo. Right now, though, it’s enough to make Maze think this mark is real, and she’s upset that Pierce doesn’t want to die anymore. Pierce promises he’ll find her another way to get back. Maze doesn’t understand why the mark isn’t gone, since it should be if she fell in love with him. She wonders if it’s because Chloe is having second thoughts about Pierce. When Ella shows up to rope Maze into helping with the bachelorette party, Maze says she’ll use this to try to get Chloe back on board, but in the meantime, Pierce needs to keep looking for another way to get her back to hell.

Chloe has been working, too, on the wedding planning, except it looks like a crime scene murder board instead of a prelude to a party. She even has a mug shot — literal mug shot — for the caterer. “Why do you think Dan and I got married at the courthouse?” she asks, looking agitated. Ella assures her they’re there to help her take care of these things, first by getting rid of her stress by getting her blind drunk at her bachelorette party. Ella has to take care of tracking down the person behind the license plate, though, so Maze takes over the planning of the bachelorette party. She promises it’ll be one Chloe won’t forget.

Lucifer and Dan head to Vincent, an ex-con who belongs to the license plate. Lucifer is still deep in his role of stand-in Chloe, having gone for a wardrobe change and sticking to the speed limit as Chloe would on the way to the suspect. Dan points out Lucifer could simply ask Chloe why she said yes, and after an awkward pause, Lucifer says there’s no point bothering the detective on her time off. Lucifer turns the inquisition on to Dan, asking him about his relationship with Charlotte. He says he’s trying to give her some space because she asked for it. Dan is surprised Lucifer cared — he insists he doesn’t, and Dan realizes Lucifer had asked because Chloe would have.

Kevin Alejandro as Dan and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Amenadiel goes to Charlotte and asks for help — she’s been looking to prove Pierce is the Sinnerman, but hasn’t gotten anywhere, but in the meantime Amenadiel wants her to help Chloe have a change of heart. She also suggests Amenadiel weaponize his own insecurities as an immortal and use them against Pierce.

Lucifer and Dan are headed into an illegal gambling den, which Lucifer knows because he’s been there before. He’s frustrated, though, because since he’s been doing everything by the book the way Chloe would, he hasn’t had the time to do the foolish, impulsive things he normally would to solve a crime. So he nominates Dan to play him in their partnership, which immediately involves shoving the poor man literally into the den of miscreants, where he has to think on his feet to avoid being killed. He has a rocky start, but he eventually does OK, using Lucifer’s money to flash and charm his way in and get himself seated, as fate would have it, right next to the suspect. Unfortunately, Dan is about to get incriminating evidence when Lucifer bursts in with a SWAT team, much to Dan’s frustration.

While the boys are chasing their lead, Maze has set up the bachelorette party, which turns out to be the most un-Maze-like party ever. It’s full of pink flowers and classical music in Chloe’s apartment and non-alcoholic punch and streamers. Ella and Charlotte discover Maze’s itinerary, which doesn’t have any naked dudes, alcohol or bongs, but does have nail art and mahjong. Linda wants to know what Maze is up to, but they can’t figure it out. Charlotte has an idea to save the party, though.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Amenadiel calls Pierce to Luxe and toasts him to celebrate his newfound mortality and all the “wonderful” things that come with it, which is of course a litany of ominous traits about being human. Most of them have to do with a shortened lifespan and death, though Amenadiel is spinning them as heightened pleasure. Pierce is visibly uneasy, and DB Woodside is on a roll as always. I want another season, and I want more Amenadiel in it.

The ladies are making paper wedding dresses — in misery — when a party bus pulls up, and everyone is excited to get on. Everyone but Maze, who has murder in her eye.

Dan and Lucifer interrogate Vincent at the precinct, where they learn that though he’s an ex-con, he wasn’t interested in harming Francis. He’s a dog trainer, too, having gotten involved in a program during his parole, and he loves Cornelia in particular because she’s pregnant by his dog. The fight with Francis was over puppy custody, but he could never murder his maternal puppy’s grandfather. That the missing dog is pregnant is news to Dan and Lucifer, and they want to know who else knew about the puppies.

As the investigation continues, so does the party, now finally full of the elements everyone but Maze was wanting, including ridiculous T-shirts with Chloe’s face on them, a fully stocked bar on the party bus and, at one of the bus’ stops, an ample supply of scantily clad men. Maze is furious because she’s convinced all this is what’s going to make Chloe have a drunken change of heart, which is apparently why she’d set up the most staid party ever.

Dan and Lucifer are now at a high-end veterinary clinic, where they try to interview Cornelia’s vet (who would have been at the crime scene as she is also the dog show vet), but she doesn’t have much to say and, oddly, no desires for Lucifer to reveal. Lucifer has resumed his own role, frustrated by Dan’s inability to “do his part” as Lucifer’s stand-in, and has told him to watch and learn. He whammies the vet so deeply, though, in an attempt to get at her desires, that he accidentally gets the veterinary assistant behind her, who blurts out that she wants “the miracle of birth,” and Dan figures out she means for dogs.

Lauren German as Chloe, Tricia Helfer as Charlotte, Aimee Garcia as Ella, Rachael Harris as Linda and Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

The assistant has indeed snatched Cornelia, knowing this was her only chance to get a puppy. She took Cornelia when Francis was already dead. Cornelia was frantic; she came to the assistant because she’s very particular and knew she would take care of her. In the assistant’s eyes, this was all justified. She was going to return her right after she gave birth — and she sold the babies. Lucifer is unimpressed and has her arrested.

Chloe, meanwhile, has her head out the skylight of the party bus, completely smashed. Linda is making out with a man on the couch. When Chloe comes down from the roof, Charlotte begins the head games, feeding Chloe some doubts. Maze has her own agenda, though, and when the bus stops at a light, she pushes the man candy out the door before anyone can stop her. Linda is upset because she was really into her couch guy; Maze takes out her earrings. Ella tries to break up the fight, but then they realize what Charlotte is doing with Chloe. Ella drags everyone but Chloe out of the bus for a serious chat.

Lucifer insists on delivering Cornelia to Fredrick in person, relegating Dan to the backseat so the “pregnant lady” can sit up front. Lucifer is frustrated because he still doesn’t know why Chloe said yes to Pierce. He blames Dan for not doing a good enough job playing the Lucifer role, and when Dan objects, Lucifer points out Dan is always holding back, that though he says he’s giving Charlotte space, Dan isn’t telling Charlotte what he wants. Dan is willing to acknowledge that, but he says he’s not taking any pointers from Lucifer when it comes to understanding people. “The reason you won’t ask Chloe why she’s marrying Pierce is that you’re scared you’re the answer.” Lucifer scoffs at this, but he’s also clearly uncomfortable. Dan says Lucifer has to stop thinking about Chloe as only her job. Lucifer of course misses the point again, deciding this means he needs an element of Chloe’s personal life: a Trixie. And here’s the dog, ready and waiting.

Linda and Maze are still fighting on the side of the road, Linda angry because she’s convinced she could have had a relationship with Couch Guy, Maze angry because all she was trying to do was keep Chloe from changing her mind. Ella wants to know why Charlotte was trying to freak Chloe out, which Charlotte insists is because a little premarital conflict is healthy. Ella says there’s still time to save this: matching temporary tattoos, like the ones Pierce was looking into. Maze goes still, realizing she’s been played. She knows Pierce’s mark is gone, that he’s been lying to her, and she runs off. So, unfortunately, has the party bus, with Chloe on it.

Kevin Alejandro as Dan and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

Lucifer has taken Cornelia back to the precinct, where the dog has made a mess of everything in the span of an hour. Fredrick is overjoyed to hear the dog is pregnant because this means he can rebuild their family. He had “no idea,” he says, with a laugh. But when he goes to take the dog, she doesn’t seem to want to go to him, which doesn’t fit the image of the happy “pair of daddies and their furbaby” image Fredrick had painted before. Regardless, he leaves with the dog.

Chloe, alone on the bus, has a drunken conversation over the loudspeaker with the bus driver. The doubts come out, and we learn how she’d been hoping this decision would turn her into some new person. She asks the bus driver if she’s married, and she says yes, 17 years. “He’s my everything.” “I hope your guy is, too.” Chloe only looks more distressed.

Lucifer, going over paperwork at Chloe’s desk, realizes Cornelia’s prenatal paperwork was signed by Fredrick, who says he didn’t know about the pregnancy, which means he lied, which means he’s most likely the killer. “Well done, Detective,” he says, then realizes that’s him in this scenario. As Fredrick arrives home in the dark, cussing at his “stupid mutt,” Dan appears in the living room, lying in wait as Lucifer normally would, having come to the same conclusion as Lucifer, only faster. Of course, Dan isn’t bulletproof, and when Fredrick pulls a gun on him, he’s completely vulnerable. Thankfully, Lucifer bursts through the door, gun drawn, shouting, “LAPD.”

It turns out Fredrick was upset because his husband had replaced him with Cornelia. He could never work up the nerve to tell Francis what he wanted because he was scared of what the answer would be. The news of the puppies, however, sent him over the edge. “Six more reasons for him to neglect me.” They fought, Francis fell and hit his head, and died, and Fredrick freaked out.

Lucifer is upset that Dan was there, in danger, not following protocol. “Perhaps I should find someone I can rely on, someone steady, someone responsible, who will really be there for me …” He drifts off, realizing he’s learned the reason Chloe went to Pierce after all.

Maze shows up at Chloe’s apartment to kill Pierce, but Trixie is asleep beside him, so she holds off. She warns him, though, he can’t use the kid as a shield forever. Maze leaves, and Chloe arrives. She has bad news for him — she’s calling off the wedding. She doesn’t think she can do it. She can’t marry him. She’s sorry, but she can’t.

Dan shows up at Charlotte’s apartment. He’s nervous, but he says while he respects her need for her space, and he’ll give that to her if it’s what she still wants. He needs to tell her what he wants, though. He’s all in. He wants her, all of her. So there. She looks at him for a minute, smiles and then kisses him.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Fox)

We need a season four, guys …

The next day Lucifer approaches Chloe at the precinct, ready to share his revelation of what he learned, but before he can start, he sees she’s no longer wearing a ring. Chloe invites him to go back to work with her, and Lucifer drops discussing what he learned eagerly, following her. Pierce watches from above, however, looking ominous and angry.

Previews for next week tease us to wonder “who’s going to hell,” and honestly, at this point I can’t even begin to guess. All I know is I hope Chloe is finally in on Lucifer’s true identity at the very least, even if we don’t get the Deckerstar ship we’ve been craving. I hope Maze doesn’t turn so evil she can’t come back from it. I hope Amenadiel keeps being awesome.

I hope above all else we get our season four confirmed soon so the poor people on Twitter hammering the #RenewLucifer hashtag can get some well-deserved rest and we can finish the season knowing it isn’t the end of everything. Hopefully, we have our wish by the time the show airs next week! See you then.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

Tonight it begins. We start our goodbye to Abby Sciuto. Do right by us, Show. M’kay?

Let’s get right to it.

Pauley Perrette as Abby on NCIS. (Photo: Robert Voets, CBS)

We begin with a nice view of the city, then Gibbs pulling up to the gate at the Navy Yard in his old pickup, ready to go to work catching bad guys, when he spies a woman having an in-your-face discussion with the uniformed guard at the gate. He tells her to step back, but she’s all done stepping back. She wants help and shoves a photo in his face, demanding they seek justice for whoever is in that photo. They push, she pushes back, and altercation ensues and she takes a swing at the guard. It becomes two guards-one woman and she is quickly down and being cuffed. Gibbs is out of his truck and calls to the guards. They assure him they have it under control. The woman looks at Gibbs as they lift her up to her feet, hands cuffed behind her back, and asks if he works there, if he’s NCIS. She tells him to look at the photo, that it’s a photo of a veteran who was murdered. She yells that the woman deserves justice as they haul her, still resisting, into the building. Gibbs picks up the photo and takes a look. It’s a woman in military uniform. Something tells me justice is about to get done.

Cue awesome opening theme song and credits!

In the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness, Bishop and McGee are fielding calls from reporters, Homeland, the head of the REACT team, you name it, all in response to the altercation at the gate. Torres, on the other hand, is trying to make reservations at a place called The Cooler, which we learn is a restaurant made out of ice. McGee tells him not to bother, that he heard even Oprah couldn’t get a table while in town. Bishop is just peeved that he’s making reservations instead of helping them with the endless incoming calls. Torres assures her it’s OK, that he forwarded all his calls to Reeves first. Heh. Reeves responds to that news by tossing a ball over the partition onto Torres’ desk, where it bounces and hits the phone, disconnecting his call. HA. More of that team banter and byplay please, writers.

Enter Palmer, who is looking dapper and also wondering if the phalanx of news trucks at the gate means Oprah is taking a tour of the place. (Are we getting a Very Special Guest appearance tonight? If Abby is involved, that would be fun!) McGee explains about the arrest at the gate, but says they’re waiting for a report from Gibbs to fill in the blanks.

Filling in the blanks, Gibbs is down in interrogation with the arrestee. We learn that the photo is of her mother, who was a chief petty officer. Turns out she was a master-at-arms command investigator. She tells Gibbs her mother did three tours in the Middle East, then defensively says she left her daughter behind just like every male soldier did. Gibbs agrees with Angry Daughter, saying he left his daughter behind when he fought in Desert Storm, too. She tries to say it’s not about her, but Gibbs calls her out, saying if she punches a guard at the gate, it becomes about her. She tells Gibbs that her mother was shot in her own home by an intruder and the Virginia State Police did nothing for a year. Gibbs counters that getting arrested isn’t going to help, and she tosses back at him that she doesn’t need his lecture. He tells her she doesn’t get to sit on that side of the table and make demands, but she is not cowed. She tells him she’s making them. She says her mother gave 20 years of her life to the service, and Gibbs being a vet knows what that she means, She says if he kicks her out, she’ll be camping out at the gate. His own front door if she can find it. Gibbs might not be having it, but he also seems somewhat quietly impressed by her fortitude and determination. She takes a larger photo of her mother, taken years later, before she was killed, and turns it to face Gibbs. She tells him she needs him to take this case and solve it. “For her.”

Skye P. Marshall as Sara Carter in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

Up in Vance’s office, he and Sloane watch a news clip showing a cellphone video clip taken of the arrest. Vance tells Sloane that SecNav wants him to draft a statement. Sloane reels off the standard “we support the Virginia State Police in solving this case, but it doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction” spiel. Vance likes that and asks her to repeat it. Sloane says that she gets that the murder happened off base, so it’s not their area, but that the principle of the matter seems to dictate otherwise. Vance isn’t sure such a thing exists any longer. Sloane tells him she’s learned that not only was Angry Daughter’s mom a vet, so was her grandmother, and so was AD herself. She even earned the purple heart from sustaining a broken clavicle and severe brain injury from a roadside bomb. Vance says that makes her a kindred spirit, but doesn’t change the core facts.

Enter Gibbs, who tells Vance the police had their shot, now NCIS will take the case. Vance says the video clip of the arrest has gone viral. He says if they take the case on, it could become a PR nightmare. Gibbs assures him they’re not going to fail in solving the case. Fade to a dapper and assured Gibbs black-and-white.

We’re back in the Bull Pen and McGee informs us that the Virginia State PD has officially turned the case over to them. Torres gets off the phone and tells them the lead detective is sending over the evidence. Bishop wonders why they’re so eager to turn the case over to NCIS, and Torres says that most normal people like to work less. Enter Gibbs, who reminds him they are not normal people. Heh. Time for a sitrep. We learn that Mom handled POW cases during wartime and non-federal crimes during peacetime. After getting out of the military, she began a second career as an assistant parole officer. She was shot and killed in her home a year ago in what looked to be a robbery gone bad. The home went into foreclosure shortly afterward and was eventually torn down by the new owner, so no crime scene. Only one suspect, a guy who was convicted of an attempted robbery on the same block a few days earlier. He served six months for that, but there wasn’t enough evidence to tie him to the murder.

Gibbs sends Torres to coordinate getting the evidence from the VSPD, Bishop down to talk to Abby and takes McGee with him to go talk to the convicted robber suspect. It’s taken a full season, but for some reason tonight, McGee finally looks like he’s grown into his new look. I know from reader mail that a lot of you like it. I want my baby face back, but tonight, I can let it slide. Maybe it’s the groomed eyebrows. I dunno. Normally, that would get a thumbs-down, too, but he looks more put together, whereas before it looked a lot sloppy in conjunction with the relaxed wardrobe choices they’ve been making.

Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

OK, back to the case. Surprisingly, Convicted Robber has turned into a charismatic speaker helping regular folk learn how to protect their homes from, well, guys like him. He sort of looks like Justin Timberlake’s convicted felon-turned-self-help guru older cousin. Without the snappy dance moves. Given the viral video, he’s not surprised to see the NCIS agents and doesn’t appear all that perturbed. He tries to push them off on a reporter he just spoke to, telling them she has all the answers they need, but Gibbs isn’t having that. CR relents, tells them he broke into one place that night, got caught, end of story. He said he never got close to Mom, but he did hear an argument coming from that place. Two women. That’s all he knows.

Shift to Palmer, Bishop and Reeves down in Abby Lab going through evidence boxes. We learn that several neighbors also reported that Mom and AD had been arguing most of that week, and some bank statements showed that AD was in a lot of debt. All of that was known by the previous investigators, and AD had said at the time she was living with her mother, but there is no other info on that. While they are unloading boxes, Abby gets an e-mail saying she’s been awarded a dinner for two at The Cooler. Bishop and Palmer immediately start angling for the second slot, but in true Abs fashion, she decides she’ll give it to the janitor with the ill wife, thinking they’d appreciate it. Turns out it’s non-transferrable, so Palmer says it’s only right that the two who work in the subterranean depths of NCIS should go to the ice cooler restaurant together. Abby smiles, but says nothing.

Meanwhile, in the garage, Torres is helping the previous detective unload the boxes. We learn that he had a hard time putting a case together against the burglar and is frankly happy to be out from under it. He said that the only person he ever found with a beef against Mom was AD.

Shift to Bishop and Reeves standing outside a house with a different family name on it, wanting to speak to AD about the fights and the debt. It’s the address she gave, but no one is coming to the door. Bishop spies AD and a young boy walking into the alley beside the house. They talk to AD and discover that since her mom’s house went into foreclosure, she and her son have been living out of her car. Fade to a concerned Reeves and Bishop black-and-white.

Mark Harmon as Gibbs and guest star Briana Lane in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

Back in Vance’s office, we learn that the reporter who spoke with CR is doing a piece on a TV show and has been digging around. She reported it appeared that NCIS agents were getting hostile with AD on the street. Gibbs says he doesn’t care what she reports, his team is doing their job and they will solve the case. Vance counters that when the world is watching, they have to be more careful. Sloane interjects that they’re both right, but the bigger issue is AD’s living situation. Her brain injury has prevented her from getting a job, and we learn that female veterans are the fastest-growing homeless segment of the population, but as many of them have children, staying in shelters and panhandling on the street isn’t a safe thing to do. So they end up staying on friends’ couches and therefore go uncounted. As their numbers climb, the resources don’t climb with them, as they are largely unreported. Vance is sympathetic but says at the moment his main concern is that AD is looking like a suspect. Gibbs asks if her brain injury has affected her recall. Sloane says it’s not in the reports, so Vance counters that AD then very likely recalls the reason behind her week-long fight with her mother, just prior to Mom’s death, and he wants to know what AD is hiding.

They exit and Sloane says she’ll be in to talk to AD as soon as her son, who looks to be 9 or 10, is settled in another room. Reeves tells Gibbs he wants to be in the room, but Gibbs says it will be too many people and her guard will go up. Reeves barks that he’s not done yet and Gibbs turns back and gets in his face, saying it’s not his call to make. Reeves calms down and asks Gibbs if he knows about the work he’s been doing with homeless vets. Gibbs says he does and Reeves counters that he knows he can help the case. Gibbs gives him the squinty-scrutiny-eye, then relents and says Reeves can take his place. (Something tells me Gibbs is going to talk to AD’s son. We’ll see.)

Reeves gets AD to talk and she tells them that her mom cashed in her 401(k) to start a photography business, a passion of hers, but when she found out how much debt her daughter was in, she used the money to pay off her daughter’s bills. AD didn’t want that and that’s what they fought over. She didn’t tell the police because she was ashamed, and she knew it had nothing to do with the murder. It was aggravating because AD felt they were wasting time looking in the wrong direction, meaning her. AD tells Reeves and Sloane that her mother not only took care of her, she took care of her son while she was deployed, keeping him fed, safe, and loved. She wants to repay her mother by taking care of her, even if it’s after the fact. Reeves gently tells AD that he knows of the organization called Final Salute that has a home for female vets and their kids to stay in until they get back on their feet. AD is instantly resistant, but Reeves reminds her that she can’t help anyone else until she helps herself. (Final Salute is a real organization. You can learn more about them here.) AD insists that they’re fine and as soon as they solve the case, she and her son are off to live with her aunt in Texas. Reeves gives her a prepaid cellphone and tells her his number has been programmed into the phone, in case she changes her mind.

Emily Wickersham as Bishop, Pauley Perrette as Abby and Brian Dietzen as Palmer on NCIS. (Photo: Robert Voets, CBS)

Down in Abby Lab, McGee shows up with some bedazzled skull ear muffs for Abby, all the better to keep her warm during her ice house dinner for two. She instructs him to put them on the table with all the other warmth-giving gifts from the rest of the team. He asks if she’s picked her plus-one yet and she says she has not. She wants to pick the person who would truly appreciate a fabulous night. McGee reminds her that he’s known her longer than any of the other folks and she assures him she’s factoring that into her dinner companion algorithm. Heh. Back to the case, Abby has determined why the police found Mom on her side, despite the fact that the ME report said she died on her back. Appears someone took something from her front jeans pocket. Abby found traces of a paper in the pocket, and there are traces of ink on the lining of the pocket that appear to be letters and numbers. The extreme heat of that day caused the ink to transfer from the paper to the fabric and Abby was able to lift what looks like a list of alphanumeric characters, all beginning with the same two first letters. Abby has tracked the numbers to a global carrier and has already texted McGee the number, which may correlate to a package being delivered. That earns Abby a kiss on the cheek. Smiling, she puts on his velvet-lined ear muffs as McGee heads out.

At the courier warehouse, we find out that the package in question was a small pouch from a veteran pharmacy containing medication. It was shipped a year ago and originally marked as received, but the recipient filed a claim that it had been stolen. The guy at the warehouse gives Gibbs and McGee the recipient’s address just as Aggressive Reporter and her cameraman enter and start badgering Gibbs about his mistreatment of AD. Gibbs tries unsuccessfully to get the cameraman to stop filming and gets in the reporter’s face as she keeps getting into his, until McGee finally asks the warehouse manager if the reporter and her crewman have permission to be there. He hesitates, then says no, and the two leave, but with threats in their wake.

Back in the Bull Pen, we learn that the drug recipient died from a heart attack two months ago. We also learn that the package was reported stolen a month before Mom died, so they speculate on whether she was possibly the one who stole it. They also have a record of her getting gas hours before she died in a bad neighborhood. “Mad Max bad,” Torres says, earning Reeves’ attention. He has traffic cam footage from that day. A snap catching a car speeding through a traffic light shows Mom’s car parked at the curb half a block behind it. There is nothing much in the area, so no obvious reason why she was there or how long she stayed. Gibbs puts Torres and Reeves on scoping out the neighborhood and tasks Bishop with tracking down possible additional traffic cam footage and to check with the detective to see if that information rings any bells with him.

Sean Murray as McGee, guest star DeVaughn Nixon and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

We go to the curbside where Mom’s car was last seen as Torres complains to Reeves that after being on hold for an hour, he learned The Cooler is booked until the following year. Abby has a reservation now and Torres thinks he’d be a fabulous dining companion. Reeves is only half listening as he looks at the situation on the street they’re on, with homeless folks in tents on the side of the street. Reeves tells Torres that he hasn’t been able to track down any aunt living in Texas, and he suspects AD won’t accept his help because she’s afraid if they find out she’s homeless, they’ll take her son away from her. They enter the hostel closest to where she was parked and show the dude at the counter a photo of Mom, ask if he’s seen her. Dude is suitably impressed with Torres’ badge but even more so that Reeves is MI-6, accent and all, earning a scowl from Torres. They tell Dude they’re going to check the place out, but the moment they go to head to the back, Dude hops the desk and takes off. Reeves and Torres take off after him, jockeying for position as they give a pell-mell chase through the streets, over, around, under and through the various homeless homesteads and construction blocking their path. They keep up the childish “I’m faster than you are” — well, unsurprisingly more Torres than Reeves — until finally Reeves takes the lead. Just as he’s about to leap to take the guy down, Torres grabs his collar and yanks him back … just as Dude gets taken out by a speeding car. Well, then. Fade to a rather shaken-looking Reeves and Torres black-and-white.

We come back to the scene of the accident. Dude is sprawled on the street, and the woman who hit him is shaken, but otherwise OK. Wrong place, wrong time. Reeves and Torres each make sure the other is OK. Torres says Dude must have had a lot of experience running from cops, but that no one wants to see things like that happen. Reeves thanks him for yanking him out of the path of the car, and Torres jokes that he wasn’t trying to save his life, he just hated seeing Reeves in front of him. They share a smile, then Torres walks away, but not before mentioning that the only reason Reeves won was because Torres pulled his hamstring. Oh, Torres.

Inside the hostel, Gibbs and Bishop look around. Gibbs mentions that as soon as Torres and Reeves started to come behind the counter, Dude took off. Gibbs determines the built-in space under the desk is hollow so Bishop kicks it in. Then Gibbs depresses the magnet latch at the top. Heh. Inside, they find racks of medications and a nine-millimeter gun, same as the type that was used to kill Mom. Bishop takes it out so they can get it processed for ballistics as the original detective comes in. He tells Gibbs that the PD ran Dude’s name and turns out the narcotics division had had their eye on him for the past two months but kept their distance in hopes of finding his supplier. The detective asks Gibbs if, given the numbers found in Mom’s pocket, could she have been stealing the drugs and coming to the hostel to sell them. Gibbs says he doesn’t think it sounds like her. Detective then wonders if maybe she was coming to the hostel as a buyer, not a seller.

Sean Murray as McGee and Pauley Perrette as Abby on NCIS. (Photo: Robert Voets, CBS)

We shift to the diner where Gibbs and Sloane are talking to AD about what they’ve discovered. AD says no way was that her mom. Gibbs says they took the case out of respect for Mom and that hasn’t changed. He talks about how during the war they all took some kind of trophies home, that he took a can of shoe polish from an Iraqi soldier to help remind him that they all polished their boots the same way, to equalize them. They go on to tell AD they know her mom was in the hospital in the late nineties for an overdose of antidepressants. AD tells them that she had a hard time when their father left them, but when she got out of the hospital, she went to rehab and was straight ever since. AD becomes defensive and gets up to leave. Sloane tells her to wait, to take some food for her son. AD says that they promised to help but are instead dragging her mom through the mud.

We shift to a TV screen of the reporter and her exposé on Mom and NCIS. They show clips of the reporter talking to AD about her mom. She makes it clear she’s only talking to the reporter so her mom isn’t pushed aside. It then goes to a clip of Gibbs trying to force the cameraman to stop filming. Palmer, who is the one watching, says the camera adds 10 pounds to Gibbs’ temper. HA. Enter Gibbs into the morgue behind Palmer, saying, “You want to make it 20?” Double HA. (Also? We’re three-quarters of the way through the episode, and other than Abby getting an all-expenses-paid dinner at a swanky restaurant, how, exactly, is this episode about her? We’ve learned more and had more moments with Reeves than with Abby. Was it too much to ask to have an Abby-centric double-header where she plays a major part of solving the Case of the Week? Wouldn’t be the first time, so it’s not an unrealistic ask. Just sayin’.) Anyway, back to Palmer, who is also with Bishop and McGee, and now Gibbs. We learn that the gun used to kill Mom was the same one found at the hostel. Unfortunately, the police didn’t request a tox screen on Mom during the autopsy, so they have no idea if she relapsed or not.

Shift to the Final Salute house where Reeves is making homemade pizza for the kids staying at the house. He looks up to see Abby standing in the doorway, smiling in approval. (Finally!) As he moves around the rest of the house, picking up and cleaning up, he tells Abby about the house, how it’s a place for homeless female vets and their kids. Abby realizes that that was what Reeves was collecting donations for, and he says yes. He tells her he volunteered as part of his rehab. He tells Abby that, unlike AD, he has only the one photo of his mom. He pulls it out of his wallet and shares it with Abby and with us. Awww! Adorbs. We learn he was only 3 years old when she died, and all he knows is that she was homeless — they were homeless — when she died. Abby says he volunteers to honor her, and he nods, saying that when he’s there, he feels he’s with her. He says when he retires he’ll start his own charity and name it after his mom, but until then, he’ll stick to making pizza and helping out where he can. Abby asks if he’s feeling like he failed because AD didn’t accept his help and that he shouldn’t give up on her. Reeves says he’s not, and that that’s why he asked Abby to come and see the place. He wants Abby to talk to AD. Abby is touched but says she won’t do it, that with all that he is doing, Reeves has all he needs to help AD. She tells him that he can’t expect AD to let her guard down if he doesn’t let his guard down.

Sean Murray as McGee and guest star DeVaughn Nixon in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

Just then, Reeves gets a call on the burner phone. It’s AD’s son, crying and telling Reeves that his mom needs help. We see her being attacked in the alley where she was parked. Her son tells Reeves that’s where they are and to hurry. Reeves takes off. We see AD fighting her attacker, eventually getting free and finding a piece of pipe in the alley. She hits her attacker and then the sounds of sirens in the distance have him running off. AD clings to her crying son and assures him she’s OK as we fade to a fraught black-and-white.

We come back to battered AD talking to Sloane, telling her that they were coming back from dinner and found the attacker going through their car. He wouldn’t leave so she fought him until he ran off. Sloane says it sounds like the man was looking for something in her car. AD says he was masked and that there is nothing worth stealing in her car. AD says that if Sloane believes the man who shot her mom is dead, then who was it who attacked her? Enter Reeves, who tells AD’s son that Abby fixed his rocket ship that got broken during the intrusion and fight. Sloane steps in saying how Abby asked her to bring AD’s son down to see it, conveniently leaving Reeves to talk to AD alone.

The minute Reeves sits down, AD breaks down, telling him she has a job cleaning houses, that she applies for everything she can find, that she’s trying to be a good mom. Reeves confides that his mother needed help, too, but he loved her for who she was trying to be. AD confides that she’s afraid that the moment she says she needs help, they’ll try to take her son away from her. Reeves says he understands that, but she can trust him. AD says there is something she needs to tell him. She said before her mom died, AD’s own pills that she took for her migraines went missing. Her mom said she’d call the insurance company for her. A tearful AD asks Reeves if he thinks maybe her mom had gone back to using again and if he thinks she might have stolen AD’s pills, too.

Sean Murray as McGee, Mark Harmon as Gibbs and guest star DeVaughn Nixon in NCIS. (Photo: Michael Yarish, CBS)

We don’t get an answer. Instead, we go down to the Bull Pen as McGee tells Gibbs that Mom was no thief. It turns out that she’d called the insurance company, as she’d promised, but instead of the insurance company sending her a tracking number for the packages that had gone missing, they mistakenly sent her a list of all the packages that had gone missing. Being a former investigator, Mom knew how to dig. She’d stumbled into uncovering a big prescription drug ring. She was in the neighborhood that day tailing the person who was selling the pills to Dude. As he’s the only one left alive, he has to be the one who attacked AD. Gibbs wonders how the attacker knew where AD parked her car. He sends Bishop to get Abby (pleasepleaseplease, can we get one scene together?), then tells Torres to put that “video thing” on the screen. Torres is all, “You mean When Gibbs Attacks?” HA! He gets the side-eye, then they put the video on the screen. Gibbs pauses it when AD is going through photos that her mother had been looking through. One of them shows Dude talking to someone. It makes sense that Mom was taking photos of the suspects. Are we all thinking it’s the police detective? He doesn’t seem a fit for this, but not sure who else we have.

Suddenly, Abby pops up as a screen-inside-the-screen. Not as good as an in-person hug, but it’s a LOT more than we’ve been getting this season. (About time, SHOW.) Abby has categorized all the contents of AD’s car, and she immediately holds up the photo in question. AH. So, there was one other guy we forgot. OK, who I forgot. The global shipping warehouse guy! That is who is in the photo. Our team of agents takes off, leaving Abby all, “Hello? Guys?”

We shift to the warehouse where Warehouse Guy is sporting a bandage on his forehead. Hmm. Wonder where he got that from? He greets them happily enough, until they show him Mom’s photo of him with Dude. Shift to the interrogation room with Bishop and Torres, who walks him through how they pieced it all together. Or, more to the point, how Mom did. They walk through how he knew Mom had figured things out, had even seen her taking photos, so he had Dude kill her and get the photos back. Dude killed her but couldn’t find the photos. Which was fine until Warehouse Guy saw them flash by on that TV exposé and knew AD must still have them. He tossed her car, but in turn, AD, as Torres puts it, “Kicked your ass.”

On the other side of the two-way glass, Bishop gives Warehouse Guy three seconds to lawyer up. He does it in two. Vance heads out to tell SecNav they’ve solved the case, thereby ending any future episodes of When Gibbs Attacks. HA. Gibbs turns to Sloane, who says that the whole thing started with a mother trying to take away her daughter’s pain. Gibbs says that sounds about right. Sloane wonders what will happen to AD, who doesn’t really have an aunt in Texas. Gibbs tells her that Reeves is handling it. Sloane comments that Reeves is really coming into his own, and Gibbs smiles, nods.

We shift to the Final Salute house. We see AD watching as her son plays with one of the other kids. AD turns and asks Reeves if he’s staying for dinner. He says he can’t that evening. She says she doesn’t want to get sappy, but she wants to thank him, for seeing her for who she’s trying to be. He tells her that her mother would be proud. She smiles and says, “So would yours.” Reeves watches as she rejoins her son, then smiles as he gets up to leave.

We shift to Gibbs’ house as he takes out his shoe polishing kit. He takes out the tin he took from the Iraqi soldier during the war. He heats it up with a lighter, pauses for a moment, the takes out a brush and polishes his boot with the wax.

And finally, we’re at The Cooler with Abby. Who does she take? We hear her talking to McGee, but when we see her, she’s on the phone with McGee, raving about the food. The person with her? Reeves. The only one who wasn’t angling for an invite. He says cheers to her for inviting him and for convincing him to talk to AD. She reminds him that she was right, he didn’t need her help. Reeves says, “Come on, Abby, everybody needs you. You’re our angel in platforms.”

Oh, good. I make it through a relatively non-Abby episode, and NOW, with less than a minute to go, when I’m home free, I need Abby-centric tissues. Just when we think we’re going to end with a sentimental, happy-for-all conclusion, WRONG. A man walks up and asks them if they can spare some change. Abby immediately says sure. Then the guy pulls a gun and says she can just give him all of it. Abby counters that maybe if they could just talk, she could help him. The man immediately becomes agitated and shoves his gun at both of them, demanding to know if Abby thinks she’s better than he is. Reeves gives the guy his wallet, then hands him Abby’s purse as he moves to try to protect Abby from the advancing gunman as he tells the man he can go on. Gunman is shouting at Abby, asking if she’s saying she thinks she can help him, demanding she say it. She does say it, but that was not the right move. Gunman advances, shouting, “You can’t help me!” as Reeves leaps in front of Abby. The screen goes black, and we hear a gunshot.

Roll credits.

Well, then.

So much for that nice, warm, fuzzy ending. Now, I know NCIS loves to kill off the women on this show. Need I go through the laundry list of names? But do we honestly think they’d kill off Abby? Abby!?!? Despite other beloved characters meeting a bad end, somehow I just don’t think they’d do this to Abby, of all characters. It would be, well, mean. Just plain mean. And Abby deserves far more than that rude disservice. Which makes this kind of a cheap stunt. OK, not even “kind of.”

I’ll give them next week to show us where they’re taking this, and hopefully we end up with an Abby-worthy exit story. But so far? Not thrilled, Show. Not. Thrilled.

Well, we might be in the midst of a possibly very annoying character-dismissing story arc, but in a determined move to keep things ending on some kind of positive, Abby-like note, let’s do something fun and get that bitter taste out of our mouths, shall we? As it happens, my next release, Bluestone & Vine, makes its debut on June 26. I know, that’s two months away. Being the author, however, it’s possible I have a few connections. Connections that have landed me a few prized advanced copies. I know! Want to be the envy of all your friends and neighbors? Or at least my friends and neighbors? Drop me a line to donna@donnakauffman.com with “I want to go to Bluestone & Vine” in the subject line and you’re in! I’ll announce the winner right here next week after we say our final goodbye to Abs.

Join me, won’t you? I’ll bring the tissues!

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C., politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts

This past month has been an adventure in viewing, and not necessarily in a good way. I’ve deleted even more shows from my regular viewing list (sorry, Arrow) and am multiple episodes behind on others (ahem, NCIS: New Orleans). Maybe it’s me. Maybe TV just isn’t bringing me what I need as an escape anymore. Everything just feels the same. And then, just when you think there’s no hope? Life (or in this case Netflix) presents you with a lovely, attention-grabbing surprise.

Max Jenkins as Will and The Robot in Lost in Space. (Photo: Netflix)

If you haven’t caught the remake of Lost in Space yet, get thee to a streaming device and get going. It. Is. Awesome. I know, I know, I haven’t raved about a show since the first season of Lethal Weapon (season two? Eh. Not as thrilled. See below.). I remember watching the original Lost in Space when I was a kid. It wasn’t one of those must-see shows for me, but it made an impression, especially the whackadoodle Dr. Smith and Will Robinson (and OK, maybe Mark Doddard’s Don was an early crush). I mostly remember the camp and kookiness. Granted, there was a lot of that in the ’70s, so when I heard they were doing a remake, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic. Which shows you just how desperate I’ve been for something different.

Set in the not-so-distant future (did they mention a date? I’m not entirely sure), and Earth has become pretty much inhabitable thanks to an “event” that’s left the atmosphere seriously damaged. It’s time to set out for a new world and colonize with the best of the best (we earthlings have to pass tests to be able to leave). Enter the Robinson family, scientist mom Maureen Robinson, military dad John, medical student turned quickly trained doctor daughter Judy (played by a scene-stealing Taylor Russell), still-finding-her-way Penny and the surprisingly intriguing Will. They are all off on the wild adventure of starting a new world, which means, of course, something has to go wrong. And it goes wrong. In just about every way you can conceive.

Taylor Russell as Judy in Lost in Space. (Photo: Netflix)

At its heart, however, is the family. Those dynamics, at least to me, are authentic and fascinating, realistic and heartbreaking. Conflict abounds between nearly all of the characters, and not just situational conflict, but real, thought-provoking situations that don’t always work out for the best. This is a real family with real problems who just happen to be caught in an out-of-this-world adventure.

And of course I can’t discuss this show without mentioning the unsung hero (or is he?) of the show, The Robot. Talk about a twist on the original. “Danger, Will Robinson” has never sounded so … I’m not sure I even have the words. Can a robot be attractive?

Parker Posey as Dr. Smith in Lost in Space. (Photo: Netflix)

I can also say, without hesitation, it’s been a long time since I’ve hated a character as much as I do Dr. Smith (as if that’s her real name). There’s been some debate among some friends and me that she doesn’t particularly have a strong motivation as to why she does what she does, but maybe that’s OK (for once, as you all know what a stickler I am for motivation). If there’s a wrong decision to be made, the one that would make a normal person feel good about themselves, she’ll go in the opposite direction. She lies constantly, manipulates everyone, but you can see it on her face (Parker Posey really is amazing in this role — she’s loving every minute of it). I dare you not to want to reach through the TV screen and strangle her. The supporting cast is equally as impressive, each with their own issues, goals and mind-sets. Some are likable, others are not. Just like … real people! And I think that’s what surprised me most about this show. Set in space or not, it’s about real people and real emotions. And what a ride it is. Needless to say, I can’t wait for season two. And there’d better be a second season. Otherwise, I’m starting a new rebellion.

Speaking of potential new seasons, as I mentioned above, I haven’t been overly fond of this season’s Lethal Weapon. I adored season one and have watched it multiple times through; the character arc of Riggs, as I’ve also waxed poetic about on this blog, was simply fascinating and heart-wrenching. While I still enjoy the Riggs-centric episodes, disturbing as some of them have been, the rest of the story lines have, at times for me at least, been borderline uncomfortable and just plain silly.

Clayne Crawford as Riggs and Damon Wayans as Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon. (Photo: Jordin Althaus, Fox)

Note to the writers: One episode with Leo Getz was fine. Maybe two. Now he’s become just ridiculous and repulsive. I’m not easily offended, but let’s just say no episodes this year have stayed on my DVR past my initial viewing. Backstage gossip aside, I’m not sure what a season three will bring, or if we’ll even get it. I hope we do, but I also hope it can find its way back to that feeling season one had, where the slapstick and goofiness are overshadowed by actual heart.

Quick aside? Um, where’s Harper? I’m assuming she’s going to be the victim of rapid aging syndrome come next season since the little tyke hasn’t made many, if any, appearances this year. I miss her. A lot.

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock and Lucy Liu as Watson in Elementary. (Photo: Jeff Neira, CBS)

And now, finally, I get to say what I’ve been dying to say for months: Welcome back, Elementary! I LOVE this show. After Supernatural, it’s my favorite, and I’ve been feeling quite lost and neglected without Sherlock and Watson. Last season, of course, ended with a cliffhanger, one that will be resolved over the course of season six. Bravo to the writers for not taking the easy or predictable way out, but actually bringing attention to a physical condition that needs addressing. This is one of the reasons I keep watching: They keep adding layers to these characters who, honestly, could have stayed static by this point. Once again, Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Lui prove they’ve got what it takes to make an indelible impression on Sherlock Holmes fans. At least this fan. As long as the wait was, it was well worth it. I can’t see what ride they take us on from here.

Sanjeev Bhaskar as Sunny and Nicola Walker as Cassie in Unforgotten. (Photo: PBS)

Speaking of rides, hop on the train to Unforgotten (a show I swear I can’t remember the name of, LOL), currently running on PBS’ Masterpiece. Yes, it’s a crime drama, and yes, it’s a large cast of characters, but it’s refreshing to have two detectives played by the always reliable Nicola Walker (probably best known for her run on MI:5) and Sanjeev Bhaskar. Season one’s mystery surrounding the discovery of a 40-year-old murder victim is emotional and devastating and examines the effects a case like this has on all those connected to the victim. It’s also incredibly refreshing to have detectives who are normal, non-tortured characters. They’re so … nice. And relatively unencumbered by life’s tragedies. Compassion and understanding are at the forefront of their demeanors. I didn’t realize just how much I was thirsting for that. Also, hallelujah! They have a crime lab with lights!! Yeah, I know, seems like a silly thing to make me happy, but I will take it where I can find it.

As for my future plans? Today, I’m off to be devastated by Avengers: Infinity War, and later this month, I hope to balance that emotional roller coaster with a live-stream viewing of the royal wedding on BritBox. If I can bring myself to get up early enough. I’m old enough to remember doing that for Princess Di’s wedding. I should for her son and his soon-to-be American princess.

I am a romance author after all.

Until next month, happy viewing.

And reading!

A geek since birth, USA TODAY bestselling romance author Anna J. Stewart loves writing romance featuring strong, independent heroines for multiple lines at Harlequin. She lives in Northern California where she deals with a serious Supernatural, Sherlock and Star Trek addiction. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her at fan conventions or at her local movie theater. Her latest release is Always the Hero. Visit her online at www.AuthorAnnaStewart.com.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Anna’s posts

Heidi Cullinan

For a week, the Lucifer creators have been teasing us that this episode would be something game-changing, that everything we wanted would come true, but also that things would shift, pivoting us into what would be an epic season four if we could ever get it confirmed. Then the Canadian viewers, who see it earlier than the U.S., began to pipe in online, agreeing that yes, this was something incredible, and we’d be blown away when we saw it.

Well, now we’ve seen it, and yes, it was everything it was billed to be. Major spoilers ahead. Epic spoilers. Are you ready? Let’s ride.

We open with Charlotte and Dan in bed, post-coital, when they’re interrupted by her kids in the kitchen. They join them, and Dan starts to make waffles, getting along perfectly with everyone. Just as he’s tying the apron, though, a man bursts in, his face constantly morphing, and shoots both children and Dan, telling Charlotte, “Thanks for your help.” Charlotte wakes up, crying, and Dan comforts her. This is her recurring nightmare, but it’s the first time Dan was in it. These are her guilty feelings haunting her, remember, her fears that working for her former law firm, she helped terrible people get away with crimes that send her to hell. This dream is, in fact, her hell-loop dream that played during her time there while the Goddess of All Creation inhabited her body.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer and Tricia Helfer as Charlotte in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

As Charlotte recovers from that, Lucifer is on Linda’s couch, and she’s hoping to hear he’s followed through and told Chloe his feelings now that Pierce is out of the picture. She wants him to tell her, “I want you to choose me.” Of course, Lucifer has not, his excuse being that now everything can go “back to normal.” He wins, he says, because they broke up. He doesn’t want to rock the boat. Linda says these are excuses, and it’s best if everyone involved goes back to normal.

Chloe is at the scene of the murder of the week: Forest Clay’s wife, Devon, has been found dead in his home. He’s a famous retired baseball legend, so this is a high-profile case. Ella is already there, and the second she sees Chloe, she begins to apologize for getting carried away with the bachelorette party and not being there for her the way Chloe needed her. Chloe doesn’t want to talk about it, only wants to get to work and focus on the case. She’s distracted, however, by the sound of a piano playing somewhere in the house.

It’s Lucifer, of course. He’s trying to re-create their first meeting, wanting to give her a life less complicated, the way things were before Pierce showed up. She’s appreciative of his efforts, but again, wants to focus on the case as a way to get to normal. Lucifer accompanies her upstairs and begins juggling baseballs from World Series past. While Ella tries to stop him, Chloe notices the lock on the door behind them is broken, hinting this was a home invasion. Except nothing was stolen. The killer knocked Forest unconscious in addition to killing Devon; Forest is currently in the hospital.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Meanwhile, Lucifer is smoking a joint, because he once smoked a joint on a case. Chloe is losing her patience. As she puts out the joint, she finds a shell casing. Lucifer grins, because his shenanigans have led her to important evidence. “Quintessential Deckerstar,” he declares.

OK, a quick pause to acknowledge the hug that was to the fans. There isn’t a question that the writers are hyperaware of their audience and the passion of LuciFans, because they hang out on the hashtags and engage online directly. To put things like “Deckerstar” in the mouth of the lead character, though, and title the episode as such, is the most Lucifer gesture ever. Thanks for that, guys.

Amenadiel visits Charlotte in her office, congratulating her for helping break up Pierce and Chloe, but Charlotte doesn’t feel any better. She still feels all her guilt, and she doesn’t know how she’ll know when it’s enough, when she’s done enough good deeds to free herself from a sentence in hell. Amenadiel points out there’s a difference between them, that he’ll know he’s done when his wings are back, though Charlotte muses that until then, isn’t he just as mortal as she is? This makes him pause a moment, and he realizes he’s not sure if he’d go to heaven if he’d die right now. Charlotte is dispirited by this, but he tells her no, this is where faith comes in. Hope in the face of hopelessness. She’s not exactly soothed, because what she’s hearing, she says, is that he’s as clueless as she is about what to do.

Lauren German as Chloe and Aimee Garcia as Ella in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Time passes, and now Charlotte is at the precinct, standing next to Lucifer as Forest Clay passes. She sees only a glimpse of him, but she freezes, looking uncomfortable. “Who’s that?” she asks Lucifer. He tells her, and puzzle pieces fall into place for Charlotte — not good ones. “He’s in my nightmares, my hell loop. If his wife is dead, he did it. He’s the killer.”

Chloe interviews Forest, who appears pained and devastated over Devon’s murder. He describes being in the kitchen during the attack, being hit in the head with a gun by a masked man. He can’t identify the man and doesn’t have any idea who it might be. Once the interview is over, however, Charlotte tells Chloe she’s sure Forest is the killer. When she worked at her old law firm, one day she was given a duffel bag and told to incinerate it. She didn’t know what was in it, only that it belonged to Forest Clay. She doesn’t have more intel than that, only that she thinks there was dried blood on the bag. When Chloe says this is quite a leap, Charlotte has no way to explain, because she’s seen him in her hell-loop video playback — though Lucifer is happy to do just this. “Don’t worry, she won’t believe me,” he assures Charlotte. Charlotte of course doesn’t believe him, but she agrees to start with Forest in her investigation nonetheless.

Lucifer finds Amenadiel at Lux, where his brother is pondering philosophy. He’s thinking about what Charlotte said, that maybe celestial beings and humans aren’t that different, that the rules and heaven and hell are the same for both. The rules of the subconscious, what people (and angels and demons) think they deserve — what if that applies to everyone? What if God wants people to judge themselves? What if God’s will isn’t what drives destiny, but what people believe is what steers their path?

I’m hitting pause on the recap here again, because it was at this moment of the episode that I wanted to close my eyes and just swim in it all. I love that we’ve spent three seasons sliding to this point, that speech, this moment, this episode. I love that it was written by Ildy Modrovich, a self-confessed Neil Gaiman admirer, and I’m going to go out on a limb and guess he’s Team Sir Terry Pratchett too. Because Amenadiel’s speech could have come out of any of Gaiman’s or Pratchett’s books, and it’s in nearly all of them, either explicitly or implicitly. You author your destiny. You make your own path, your own heaven, your own hell.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

I’m here to tell you, much as I love the actors on this show, the autograph line I want is for the Luciferwriters, with Modrovich at the head of the line.

Lucifer is not as impressed with Amenadiel’s revelations as I am, alas. He sees his inability to get rid of his wings and Amenadiel’s failure to reclaim his own as disproof of this theory, and he’s angry to boot. Clearly, Amenadiel has struck a nerve.

Dan has been researching Forest, but he’s squeaky clean. No scandals, no nothing. Ella discovers, however, that the injury on his forehead in no way came from blunt force from a gun. It was a cut from something sharp. The man is lying. So Chloe takes Lucifer to Forest, where Lucifer whammies him and they discover Forest wasn’t at home the night of the murder. He was with his mistress. So they interview the mistress, Emma, who says he got the cut during some rough sex. He was hit with a lamp that broke. Emma says, however, that Forest’s wife had been having an affair as well.

Maze goes to Pierce to kill him, but Pierce convinces her he has a new plan. They’re going to kill Amenadiel — if Maze weakens him, Pierce will kill him and frame Lucifer. Pierce will get his mark back, because what will make God angrier than killing his favorite son? Then, to get out of being framed, Lucifer will have to take Maze back to hell. Everyone wins. The only hiccup to this plan is if Maze isn’t the merciless badass she used to be. “Nothing’s changed,” she promises him and goes off to put the plan into action.

Chloe and Lucifer talk to the man who was supposed to have been having an affair with Devon Clay, but he says he wasn’t. They worked long hours together, but no affair. He did report a spy, however, that they caught sneaking around just the other day, a man engaged in corporate espionage. He didn’t press charges because they didn’t catch him, but Chloe thinks the spy might have been stalking Devon instead. They go to review the tapes.

Meanwhile, Amenadiel and Charlotte are reviving their sting operation team again, this time at Charlotte’s old law firm. Amenadiel pretends to be a potential new client and is in the head partner’s office while Charlotte storms in and makes a scene in the lobby. Charlotte is basically laying down truth, telling him hell is real and that he’s as guilty as the clients they represent. While that’s going on, Amenadiel steals information from the lawyer’s hard drive, and he leaves as soon as Charlotte is escorted out.

Lauren German as Chloe and Aimee Garcia as Ella in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Ella scans the footage of the spy coming in and out of the building, but she can’t get an ID. Meanwhile, a package arrives for Dan — he’s bought a waffle maker, so he can make Charlotte waffles in the morning. It’s either that or a bracelet with a waffle on it. Lucifer says this is Dan back to his douchey ways, but at least the jewelry is better than the appliance. Chloe says she’s not sure Lucifer is the authority on what women want and leaves, without offering her partner so much as some ointment for that burn.

Charlotte has uncovered gold with her hard-drive swipe: a trove of nondisclosure agreements for Forest Clay and women going back years, though some were as recent as a few weeks ago. The agreements are expensive, and they mean he’s trying to cover up something serious. The woman whose agreement lines up with the duffel bag Charlotte disposed of was found murdered, according to news archives. It’s too coincidental. It doesn’t give any proof, but it is all starting to pile up and make Clay look very guilty. Charlotte is upset because she knows she destroyed evidence that would have helped them now, but Amenadiel tells her not to despair, to hold on to tiny victories.

Dan arrives, and Amenadiel leaves them alone to have some space. In the parking garage, however, Amenadiel finds Maze, who is crying and upset because “everything is ruined” and she “has no one.” Amenadiel is quick to comfort her, embracing her and telling her everything is going to be OK. He doesn’t know what she’s been going through, but it’s never too late to fix things. Maze smiles evilly and raises a syringe of some kind behind his back.

Kevin Alejandro as Dan in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

“You can always be forgiven. That is in your hands.” Maze continues to smile darkly as he says this and raises her arm, ready to strike. Then Amenadiel adds, “For what it’s worth, I will always be here for you.”

Maze lowers the syringe and pulls back, staring at him with a stunned expression.

I have so much to say about this, but I want to wait until we get to the end, so consider this pin number one.

Lucifer goes to Chloe’s house, where he tries to re-create the night they all played Monopoly together, down to what pieces everyone had and what they said at what moments. It goes over poorly, of course, because of his bad timing and his approach. When he tries to dance with her to the same song they danced to before, pulling it up on the fly in his phone, Chloe is upset and asks him to leave. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Are you making fun of us?” When Lucifer says no, this is him just wanting to get them back to normal, she says, “Maybe we can’t. Maybe I can’t. It just hurts.”

The next morning, Chloe arrives at work hyped on caffeine, having watched the surveillance footage instead of sleeping. She’s discovered every time the stalker showed up, so did Forest Clay. What if Forest was the intended target all along? Ella agrees this is a great theory, but she’s worried about Chloe and thinks it’s about Pierce, but Chloe says no, she doesn’t think any of it’s about him. It’s about Lucifer. He’s why she said yes to Pierce, and why she said no. Ella is stunned, and sorry that she wasn’t a good enough friend to check in with Chloe and help. She wants to be there now. What does she need? To focus on work, Chloe says, so they do.

Charlotte helps as well. She says the stalker is A.J. Agholor, who went to jail in 2005 for the murder of one of the women Forest had sign a nondisclosure agreement, the woman who was killed at the same time Charlotte disposed of a bloody duffel bag. The motive is that A.J. was let out of prison recently and immediately began stalking Forest. Motive and opportunity.

Maze goes back to Pierce to report that she’s changed her mind, that killing Amenadiel won’t get him his mark back. “God isn’t a drive-through. You can’t just order what you want.” (Consider this pin number two.) Pierce is annoyed and leaves to take care of it himself, but Maze pulls out a blade to stop him. “Where do you think you’re going?” She kicks him to the ground.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer and Lauren German as Chloe in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Chloe confronts A.J. with the gun they found in his car, telling him the casing they found inside matches the one they found beside Devon’s body. She also tells him she doesn’t think he meant to kill Devon, that she knows he was following Forest. She lures him into talking, and he does. He says he wants revenge for the murdered girl, the one he went to prison for. She broke off their engagement because she was afraid of Forest, though at the time he didn’t know it was him. He used to hurt her, A.J. says. She wanted to leave him, but she couldn’t. One night she called him, crying, screaming, and the next thing she knew, he was going down for murder. When A.J. got out of prison, he went to see his ex-girlfriend’s mother, and she told him the man who’d been hurting his ex was Forest. He has no proof, though.

Lucifer arrives to listen in, only to realize the detective caught the bad guy without him. Chloe thanks Charlotte for helping her with her case, and she says she has an idea as to how they might solve Charlotte’s.

Maze fights Pierce, losing the syringe she’d been carrying when he pretends to give up. When she’s ready to kill him, he says she can’t because if she does, Linda will die, too. She thinks this is a bluff, but she’s worried enough to pause. When she drops her guard just for a moment, he stabs her with the syringe.

At Forest Clay’s home, Charlotte appears and confronts him, saying she knows everything, all the women he abused and paid off. She knows his current girlfriend is also being abused, that he got his cut because she pushed him away when he was too rough. He offers her money, and she brings up the duffel bag, though she lies and says she kept it. She accuses him of murder, and at first he denies it. He pulls a knife on his mistress and says he didn’t mean to kill that girl, it was an accident. He needs Charlotte’s help. She flashes back to her hell loop, then stares him in the eye and says, “I’m not going to help you this time.”

Lauren German as Chloe and Tom Ellis as Lucifer in Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

Lucifer is outside the door, oblivious, telling them he’s there to help — no one hears him as Chloe arrives, gun drawn. She tells Clay they recorded everything, then arrests Forest. Lucifer isn’t needed yet again.

Amenadiel finds Charlotte at a hilltop overlooking Los Angeles, and they discuss the resolution of the case. Amenadiel admits he’s been telling himself he’s doing God’s work, but if he’s honest, it’s been for him, to get his father to give him his wings back. He thinks, though, he’s the one who took his wings away, that angels are just as flawed as humans. “At least we have each other,” she says. “Tiny victories.” He points out this is no tiny victory, that she stopped a serial abuser. Because of her, he will never hurt anyone ever again. He’s pretty sure she didn’t do that just for herself. “Maybe not,” she says, and you can tell this is a revelation to her.

We pan back, and from Amenadiel’s side of the bench, we see the arm of someone holding a gun aimed at the angel. The camera shifts, and suddenly Charlotte sees it, too. In one moment, she moves in front of Amenadiel — it takes no time at all, no thought. She simply sees the threat, is horrified and reacts. The gun is fired, and we see two red stains break out in Charlotte’s midsection, over her white shirt and cardigan.

No, let me clarify. It’s a white shirt speckled with dark gray stars. Carry that symbolism on your own, you can get there.

Amenadiel holds her, eases her gently to the ground, but there’s no question. This is a mortal wound. She’s gasping and shaking. She’s dying.

At the Clay residence, this time it’s Chloe who’s playing the piano, pecking out Heart and Soul. Lucifer smiles sadly at her, tells her well done, then says, “Point taken. You’ve put away not only one, but two bad guys today without my help. It’s become very clear you don’t need me.” That’s OK, he says, because it’s made him realize the truth. She’s with him because she wants to be, not because she needs to be. She did choose him over Pierce.

He acknowledges he’s been avoiding talking about how he felt about her because he was afraid of how she’d react, that if she saw all of him, if she knew all of him, she’d run away. “The other side of me is bad. Monstrous, even.” But she deserves the truth, he says. He can’t show her at the moment, so he’ll have to tell her. “Detective — Chloe — I am the devil.”

“No, you’re not,” she says. “Not to me.” And then, finally, we get the Deckerstar moment we have waited three seasons for. They kiss to soft music as their confessions echo around us.

We barely get a moment, though, before Chloe’s phone rings. She’s going to turn it off, but then she sees who it is and has to take it. Of course, this phone call is the news of Charlotte’s murder.

Tom Ellis as Lucifer. (Photo: Erik Voake, Fox)

We cut to Amenadiel and Charlotte. He tells her he’s going to get help, but Charlotte knows it’s over. “Why did you do that? Why did you jump in front of me like that?” he asks. “It wasn’t for myself, that’s for damn sure,” she says, trying to laugh, but it quickly turns to pain. “Will you stay with me?” she asks, knowing she’s about to die. Afraid she’s going to hell. And then she does die. Weeping, Amenadiel closes her eyes. Then he lifts his head, then bows it, and his wings unfurl. He stands, cradling her in his arms. “Let’s go home.”

Pin number three, and man, is it the biggest one of the bunch.

The episode closes with everyone arriving on the crime scene, weeping. First Chloe, and then, heartbreakingly, Dan. Lucifer holds Chloe, staring at Charlotte, stunned. We get a closeup of Charlotte’s wrist — she’s wearing the bracelet Dan gave her, the waffle one.

We end with Lucifer discovering a feather on the ground — one of his brother’s.

So much here. I know we’ve already spent a lot of time going deep into the recap, but this episode is worthy of our time. We’ll begin with those pins. We already discussed how this is an episode built around the idea of heaven and hell and destiny being not only what we make of it but controlled entirely by us; we also have the key moments and pivotal lines delivered by humans who have done seriously bad things in the past and by literal demons. It’s a fallen angel who gives forgiveness to a demon, who tells her she can be forgiven no matter what, so long as she asks. It’s Maze who tells us God isn’t a drive-through where you can order whatever you want. It’s Charlotte, who went to hell for aiding and abetting, who helps Amenadiel get his wings back and is carried to heaven just for one act. This is an episode about forgiveness and God’s will and destiny, and it’s called Lucifer. The lead is the devil, and he’s the hero 100%. In fact, he just got the girl. How wickedly brilliant is all of this?

LUCIFER: Tricia Helfer in the ÒQuintessential DeckerstarÓ episode of LUCIFER airing Monday, May 7 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. CR: Erik Voake/FOX

Also, I want to give incredible props to DB Woodside and Tricia Helfer for their stunning performances in this episode and the whole latter half of this season as they’ve led us through their arc together. They put in the time and the talent, so when this scene landed, we ached and celebrated in this strange sort of emotional twist cone — we had the tragedy of Charlotte’s death, but the joy of her success in claiming her path and helping the angel find his. The sorrow for Amenadiel, and the relief and happiness as he reclaimed his divine nature for Charlotte’s sake. What a moment. It’s ringing like a bell a day later. Incredible writing and acting, all of it. Well done.

Now we have the final episode to look forward to next week, and I don’t even know what to think will happen there. I feel like the sides of the box have blown off, the bottom shot clean away, too, and we’re suspended in the air, waiting to see what dimension we land in. We’re still waiting for that season four confirmation, too. Come on, guys. If this didn’t convince you to #RenewLucifer, I’m concerned for the state of your soul. I’m ready for episode 24, and I hope I’m leading off with a round of virtual champagne for that renewal announcement.

Fingers crossed.

An author of contemporary, historical and paranormal romances featuring LGBT characters, Heidi Cullinan is best known for stories of characters struggling with insurmountable odds on their way to their happily ever afters. Find out more about Heidi at www.heidicullinan.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

MORE ON HEA: See more of Heidi’s Lucifer posts

And so we’re here. The end of the Abby Era on NCIS. As I mentioned in last week’s recap, I wasn’t a fan of the storyline last week in the first of a supposed two-part Abby exit story. Namely, because the episode had nothing to do with Abby. At least not any more than they typically do. And I’m sorry, but 30 seconds of cliffhanger at the end is not Abby-centric.

Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

Having viewed the “scenes from our next episode” after turning in my recap, I’ll add that neither is having her languish in a hospital bed near death so her near and dear have an excuse to take a stroll down memory lane of Abby’s Greatest Hits and take us with them. Don’t get me wrong, I love the chance to revisit some of the Classic Abby Moments, especially as they pertain to those characters who are no longer with us.

And yet, how much more interesting for us, not to mention fun for the actor, would it have been to go out with a classic Abby-centric crime to be solved. If it also answered more backstory questions about her, even better! There are myriad ways to bring in those flashback moments along the way. This plot feels overdone and lazy. Not to mention supremely insulting to a character who won our hearts largely because of her bubbly enthusiasm.

Of course, given Gibbs and Abby haven’t shared each other’s personal space this entire season, maybe the only way the two actors would agree to be on set together was if one of their characters was unconscious. Seems like a stretch, and yet, we have 21 episodes of proof that yeah, not so much. I’d like to think they’d have been professional enough to put aside their differences and give their loyal viewers a real Abby-Gibbs closing. Then they can spend all eternity never having to worry about such things again. (Insert eye roll here.)

I guess we’ll see.

So, let’s, shall we?

Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

We open with a reminder that Abby was “randomly selected” to have dinner at The Cooler, the swanky restaurant-carved-from-ice. Which begs the question, was that a setup intended to intentionally draw Abby to a known location for a nefarious reason? She ended up shot, so, yeah, that’s certainly nefarious. But her shooter wasn’t immediately identifiable as anyone we know from her past. So, was the shooting just a mugging gone horribly awry? Or not a coincidence?

Well, we know what Gibbs would say about that.

Now, the actual opening scene goes a LONG WAY toward lightening my admittedly less-than-optimistic mood! It’s poker night at Gibbs’ place and around the table we have Gibbs, Sloane and Vance. But we also get Fornell AND Dr. Grace! Hello! Sloane is trying to parse Gibbs’ poker face for her poker mates but not having much luck. They decide after several winning hands in a row, he must be bluffing. Sloane calls his bluff and is denied by Gibbs’ four kings. Gibbs gives us a rare, utterly delighted full belly laugh as everyone at the table gapes at his luck. His phone rings, and we know fun time is about to be swiftly over when he hears about the shooting. And it is.

We shift to them rolling Abby into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest. And it was at very close range. Amazing she’s alive at all. She starts to code and the doctors scramble to get the crash cart as we move to the amazing opening theme song and credits.

And, the party is completely over the instant the credits stop rolling as we get double sucker-punched.

Here we are, being all moody about the whole Abby-is-unconscious-while-her-exit-story-goes-on-around-her thing … then Ducky walks into the NCIS autopsy room and there’s a body bag on the table. With a body in it. Torres, Palmer and Bishop flank the table from a respectable distance, looking alternately pissed and gutted. With Abby currently coding out in the hospital, there’s only one other person that could be. They’ve killed Reeves.

Well. Dang. Just …

Duane Henry as MI6 Officer Clayton Reeves. (Photo: Cliff Lipson, CBS)

Ducky tries to calm a livid Torres, who is not coming to terms with losing his compatriot. He tells him all they can do now is their respective jobs. A solemn Bishop agrees and she and a still- stormy Torres head out, leaving Ducky and Palmer behind with the bag. Ducky offers Palmer a let on performing an autopsy on a colleague. However, the shaken-but-solid Palmer replies that if doing that is the only way he can help, he’s not taking a pass. Ducky respects and admires the choice.

They unzip the bag and we get confirmation that Reeves is gone. The blood on the front of his shirt shows that he took the bullet for Abby. The reason she had a chance is because it didn’t get to her until it passed through him. That is a hero’s exit. (But really? Reeves? We loved him!) Then Palmer leans down and says, “Don’t worry, Clay. You’re in good hands,” and I realize this is going to be at least a one-Kleenex-box episode. Possibly family-sized.

I’ll go on record with my prediction now. Abby lives and leaves NCIS to continue the charitable work that Reeves began. If so, at least this time they killed off the guy instead of the woman.

At the hospital, Vance rushes in and we learn from a stoic McGee that Abby is out of surgery but in critical condition. If she doesn’t wake up in the next 48 hours, her chances aren’t good. The gunman is still at large and the shooting is being termed a mugging gone wrong. McGee says Gibbs hasn’t said a word since arriving. In Abby’s room, Gibbs stands by her bed and tells her he knows he let her down, that he promised to keep her safe. We get our first flashback of the night, with a much younger Gibbs shielding Abby from a gunman, making that promise to her, that he’d never let harm come to her. This scene is like another little punch to our already aching gut, because it’s a visceral reminder of all that we’ve missed out on between the two of them this entire season, and how much richer the show was when balanced by their loving and teasing moments. I feel cheated all over again. Gibbs heads out of the room and blows past Vance and McGee. When asked where he’s going, all he says is, “To keep a promise.” Fade to a steely Gibbs black-and-white.

We come back to the Bull Pen where Torres hears some crunching happening behind the partition. He walks over and spies Bishop sitting at Reeves’ desk, munching on prawn-flavored chips he used to get shipped in from the U.K. especially for her. She’s not enjoying them so much now. Tearful, she is upset that she never told Reeves he was like a brother to her. Torres tells her Reeves knew, but Bishop is adamant that a kid who grew up with no family should have heard it from her directly. Gibbs enters and says it’s time for them to get to work and find the shooter.

Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

In the hospital, a glassy-eyed McGee is watching over Abby as Palmer comes in with some food. McGee refuses and Palmer tells him to at least get some air. McGee says he’s going nowhere until he knows she’ll be OK, no matter how long that takes. Palmer tells him to talk to her then, that just because she’s unconscious doesn’t mean she won’t hear him. Palmer urges him to tell Abby what she means to him. McGee’s eyes grow wetter still and he says he doesn’t know where to begin.

Sloane finds Gibbs in autopsy with Reeves. She urges him to talk things out, but Gibbs angrily just wants to find the person who did this. Enter Ducky who tells them that Reeves took two bullets, one of them being the cause of death. He also notes bruising on Reeves’ knuckles, indicating there was some kind of struggle. Gibbs says Reeves had such a tough life and didn’t deserve that. We learn that Reeves’ belongings were sent up to the lab to be processed, and he’s asked, bleakly, by whom?

Up in Abby Lab, Bishop and Torres are not doing well with the various equipment, but finally get a ping from the computer with results from the blood samples from Reeves’ shirt they’d had tested. Turns out there were two blood types on his shirt. One belonging to Reeves, and another they traced to a dishonorably discharged Army specialist.

The next thing we see is Gibbs kicking in a door, presumably to Army Specialist’s place. Bishop and Torres enter behind him, guns drawn. Bishop spies a Beretta on a table next to Reeves’ wallet. Abby’s purse is on a nearby chair. Gibbs calls them into the kitchen, where they find Army Specialist with his throat cut. Torres posits that the guy who killed him was the guy who hired him. He enters the room with a folder. It’s a dossier on Abby. It wasn’t a mugging, it was a hit. And Abby is the target. Fade to black-and-white.

If this wasn’t the exit episode for Abby and Reeves wasn’t lying dead in the morgue, this would be an intriguing episode. That much, I’ll give. I still wish they’d worked a bit harder on a plot that didn’t negate Abby being an actual active participant. Killing Reeves was already going to crank up the emotion-meter. Maybe a little balance so it’s not all wrench. We don’t need to get gut kicked to be reminded of what Abby meant to everyone.

Wilmer Valderrama as Torres and Sean Murray as McGee in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

Anyhoo, back in Vance’s office, we learn that Army Specialist was dishonorably discharged eight years ago for aggravated assault. They matched the ballistics from his gun to the bullets that killed Reeves and wounded Abby. Bishop says they also match the ballistics of six unsolved shootings in the area. They’ve gone over all the cases where Abby’s forensics played a key role in nailing the perpetrator and the Guy Most Likely to want to kill Abby, is a blast-from-the-way-past baddie. Going all the way back to season three, and the episode Bloodbath we’re reacquainted with Terry Spooner, a guy accused of embezzling tens of millions of dollars and who was put away largely due to Abby’s testimony. So much so he hired a hitman back then to take her out to keep her from testifying. Obviously, a failed attempt. Equally obvious, his 12 years behind bars haven’t reduced his desire to see her dead. We learn he was released six months ago and is in a halfway house in the D.C. metro area. (Actually, they name Silver Spring, Maryland, where my mom grew up, but I digress …) Vance directs Gibbs to bring Spooner in. “In one piece.” Gibbs exits with, “We’ll see.”

At the hospital, McGee is still keeping watch bedside, on the phone with … Tony! (You know, I’d forgive ALL of this for a DiNozzo Jr. sighting. Now, THAT would be the way to honor Abby’s contribution to the show.) McGee and Tony have a classic moment on the phone where Tony makes McGee tell him he loves him, after Tony has clearly just said the same to him. After hanging up, McGee, who is struggling to hold it together, tells Abby that Tony didn’t call him a McNickname (ha!) so McGee knows he’s really worried about her. McGee suddenly rises, angry and tearful at the same time. His voice cracking, he tells Abby someone is trying to kill her and even if she’d act like she wasn’t scared, it’s scaring McGee and he’d really like her to wake up. Tearfully, he begs her.

In interrogation, we’re reintroduced to Terry Spooner (nice touch that it’s the same actor, Eddie Jemison.) He hasn’t lost a shred of his annoying, weaselly demeanor. But it turns out he’s wearing an ankle monitor and swears he’s a changed man. On the other side of the glass, Sloane says that Spooner is motivated by greed. His contract on Abby years ago was so he wouldn’t lose his money. What he craves now is freedom, so he’s not jeopardizing that. Gibbs agrees that it’s not Spooner. Sloane goes on to say that whoever put the hit on Abby, it was personal. She says the guy would be calculating, connected (due to the reservations at the six-months-reserved-in-advance restaurant) and holding a big grudge. She asks Gibbs if he knows anybody like that. Looks like we’re in for a possible Who’s Who of past baddies who all want a piece of Abby. Gibbs has an idea who it might be.

Cut to Gibbs visiting Alejandro Rivera (again, same actor, nice!) whom we first met in season seven (several times), then again in season eight and lastly, until tonight, in season 11, all tied deeply to Gibbs’ backstory. Abby also played a central role in nailing Alejandro, and he’d threatened her before. Alejandro seems somewhat delighted by the idea that someone close to Gibbs has died, given he’s is still very sensitive to his sister Paloma’s death. Gibbs quietly gets up, walks around beside Alejandro, bends low, then almost twists his ear off as he whispers roughly, “Was it you?” Gibbs threatens to kill him if Abby dies, and Alejandro is sincerely shocked that Gibbs would think he’d try to kill Abby. He says if he was going to try and kill anyone, it would be Gibbs. Gibbs reminds him he threatened Abby, but Alejandro corrects him. He explains that he didn’t threaten Abby, he warned her. He warned her about Gibbs, about the dark cloud that surrounds Gibbs and how those closest to him always seem to end up dead. (Fair point.) Alejandro sinks the point home by asking Gibbs how many of those closest to him made the mistake of trusting him with their lives?

Screenshot of Sasha Alexander as Kate on the NCIS episode Yankee White.

Gibbs’ expression is bleak, then we flashback to … oh, great. We get to watch Special Agent Kate Todd die all over again. I hated that one the most. So brutal. In all possible ways. Thanks. Then we see Gibbs exiting the prison, overlaid with scenes of Tony seeing the news reports of the fire that kills Special Agent Ziva David and Gibbs telling him he’s to stand down. And Tony slamming his palms on his desk yelling that when other agents have died, “It’s all hands on deck,” his hands pounding on each word. Then we cut to Mike Franks lying dead on that rain-soaked street, a knife sticking out of his chest.

We’re spared watching Director Jenny Shepard die, and Diane Fornell, too (also Dornie … Jackie Vance …) when we cut to the hospital. In her mind’s eye, Abby is seeing the gun, and we see her frown, the mental struggle, then she finally opens her eyes. McGee leaps to his feet, tells her she’s in the hospital, but she’s going to be fine. Frowning, Abby asks about Reeves. Fade to black-and-white.

And we’re just halfway. Great pacing, Show, no denying that. Painful and a big zero on the fun meter, but definitely not a snooze-fest. Remind me to be careful what I gripe about, because I’d much rather be reliving Abby’s Greatest Moments rather than The Deaths of All Who Have Passed Here parade.

Sean Murray as McGee, Wilmer Valderrama as Torres, Brian Dietzen as Palmer and Emily Wickersham as Bishop in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

We come back from the break and it’s two days later. Torres is asleep at his desk and we get a rare moment of attempted levity when Vance ponders to Sloane that he doesn’t know whether to wake him or fire him. Sloane reminds him that no one on Gibbs’ team has taken a break since the shooting. Enter Gibbs, asking for an update. Torres immediately rises and tells him that Abby has no recollection of the shooting and in looking through Abby’s past cases, they’ve tried to narrow it down to folks she nailed who also fit Sloane’s profile. Gibbs is annoyed that they don’t have anything more specific and Torres reminds him they’re digging through 16 years of cases. Gibbs tells him to do better. Sloane and Vance tell Gibbs his team might need a break. Gibbs walks up to Torres and peers directly into his eyes, almost nose to nose, and says he looks fine to Gibbs.

Enter Bishop, who did more digging into Army Specialist hitman and finds out he served in Afghanistan at the same time and location as another guy Abby helped put away. Former Marine Sergeant Robert King (from back in season six) who tricked her into creating a bioweapon. Abby tracked him down before he could sell it. (Now that is the kind of story arc I was talking about!) He’s serving a life sentence, but Gibbs and Bishop head to see him anyway. He sends Torres to Abby’s place to relieve McGee for protection duty. Torres mentions that he’s never been to Abby’s before and asks what it’s like. Oh, you’ll see, my friend.

Now we’re at Abby’s with her and McGee. It’s interesting to think about how far back this duo goes. It’s almost impossible to remember them as being romantically entangled. We get to see Abby’s mausoleum-cum-house-of-horrors decorating scheme. McGee has just finished (for the 10th time, apparently) fixing Abby’s hair and lamenting over how hard it is to get pigtails even. (Heh.) Abby is in a sling and her chest is bandaged up. She’s frustrated and McGee counsels her to give herself some time. She says it’s hard to rest when she wants to help them solve the case but can’t even fix her own hair. She solemnly talks about Reeves taking bullets meant for her, that he shouldn’t be dead. Then comes an alarming pounding at the door. McGee rushes forward, gun drawn, asking if she’s expecting anyone. She says just a leather-studded sling for her arm. (So Abby.) Turns out it’s just Torres. He takes over Abby Watch and McGee counsels him to keep a close eye, that despite being in prison, King has an arsenal of black ops guys at his fingertips.

Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

Abby says how McGee doesn’t have to remind her, then reminds us with a handy flashback to when a seriously youthful McGee and suave Tony are arresting King, with Gibbs standing by, telling King that if he’s going to play chess with a forensic specialist, next time, wear gloves. An exquisitely arch-eyebrowed Abby leans in, giving King the evil eye, asking why he did what he did. He admits it was to keep her from asking questions. Flashing back to the present, Abby is frustrated that she can recall that day in crystal clarity, but can recall nothing from the night of the shooting.

In the prison, we learn that King is a troublemaker and has landed himself in solitary, where he’s been for the past week, leaving the guard thinking it’s unlikely King is their man. It looks like third time’s the charm. In his cell, they find, instead, the solitary duty guard. In interrogation we learn the guard agreed to the swap because King threatened to kill his family if he didn’t. King had photos of Guard’s grandkids at school. So he caved. Gibbs asked if the fight King started was intentionally designed to land him in solitary so the swap could take place. Guard says yes, then says that King planned to leave the country after tying up a few loose ends.

Pauley Perrette as Abby and Wilmer Valderrama as Torres in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

At Abby’s place, Torres is digging her coffin-bed and admiring the layout of her closet. Meanwhile, Abby is in the kitchen doing a deep dive trying to look into the reservation that placed her and Reeves at the restaurant. She hacks into the restaurant’s system and determines that they didn’t issue her a “prize dinner.” Someone else hacked in and created the reservation in her name. Now she has the hacker’s IP address so she’ll know if he logs in anywhere in the area. She vows to find him, saying he’s messing with the wrong forensic scientist. Torres agrees. Just then, bingo, the guy logs in and Abby snags his address. She tells Torres to call Gibbs (because now that she’s alive and kicking, no more Gibbs-Abby scenes) and tell him she’ll be sending him the address.

We see Gibbs, Bishop and McGee show up at the supposed address, only to discover a long-abandoned storefront. They wonder if perhaps Abby got the address wrong. And then they figure it out. And so do we. She sent them there on purpose. So … meanwhile …

Enter the hooded Abby as she strolls up to King, who’s seated at a table at an outside café. She’s all, “Hey, Tom. Or Robert. Or whatever you’re calling yourself these days.” He looks up, clearly startled, and the camera pans to Abby’s face, her stark features framed perfectly by the black hood, staring with inscrutable focus at her target as she adds, “Surprised to see me?” Fade to a brilliantly fierce Abby black-and-white.

As we go to commercial break, I will need to take a moment so I can eat ALL THE CROW. Because THAT? Was everything I ever wanted.

Mea culpa, Show. Redeemed.

Pauley Perrette as Abby and Wilmer Valderrama as Torres in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

We’re back with Hooded Ninja Abby and King. He seems surprised that she didn’t bring backup and she says she wanted to face him alone. He says he’s impressed. Steely Abby, with her hair down and eyes so exquisite, asks if that’s because she’s alive, or because she tracked him down a second time. She warns him not to think she’s even remotely intimidated by him. He smiles, very relaxed now, and says if she’s not going to arrest him, then what does she want? She says, “Rule 45.” He frowns, asks what that is. Abby says, “You’ll find out soon enough.” He shrugs, invites her to sit down.

We shift to her place where Gibbs, McGee and Bishop have gone over it and found no Abby and no Torres. They can’t figure out why Torres would go along with it. And where is Torres anyway? McGee asks if they really think Abby went to confront King and Gibbs shows him a sticky note she left behind that has “Rule 45” printed on it. “Clean up your messes,” McGee says, reciting that particular Gibbs Rule. Gibbs tells Bishop to call Torres and puts McGee on Abby’s computer to try and figure out where she went. When Bishop calls Torres’ phone, they hear it ring from the other room. She races in, finds it on the floor, then they hear Torres banging the lid from inside the coffin. HA. Oh, Torres.

Gibbs has to force the lock with his knife. The moment it’s open, Torres comes barreling out of there, all squirrel-eyed at being locked in a coffin. (Given his superstitious beliefs, this is exactly how we’d expect him to be.) Still wild-eyed, he’s all, “She played me, Gibbs.” Turns out Abby bet Torres he wouldn’t get in because he was too afraid, then the moment he climbed in, she locked him inside. Gibbs smiles, and Torres is pretty sure he’s scarred for life. He’s all, “I don’t like this new Abby.” HA. He explains that Abby didn’t want anyone else to die because of her, so she went to confront King alone. Meanwhile, McGee finds out the location is a café in Georgetown, and off the team goes.

Back with Abby and King, she asks him how he can live with himself, given the murders he’s committed. He says it’s just the cost of doing business, then tells her that her hands aren’t clean either. She asks what he means, and he tells her that all the soldiers who died while he was in prison are blood on her hands, as his work could have prevented all that. She refutes that, saying he’s a bioweapons terrorist. He says he’s the kind of “patriot” the country needs, someone who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty to get the job done. She realizes that he’s got another plan cooking and asks him what he’s up to. He tells her not to worry about it, that unlike her friend, she needs to accept it when she’s been beaten.

Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Robert Voets, CBS)

Abby finally remembers the night of the shooting. We see what happens when Abby realizes that the shooter isn’t there for money. Reeves dives in, the two struggle, shots are fired, then the shooter runs off, leaving Abby and Reeves lying in the alley. Abby looks over at Reeves, saying his name. His eyes are open, his gaze now empty and fixed. He’s dead. Back in the present, Abby says that Reeves saved her. King shrugs it off as a casualty of war, saying if he hadn’t interfered, he’d still be alive.

Abby’s thoughts are elsewhere, though. She remarks on how she’s spent her whole life putting bad guys away, but every time one goes down, another one takes his place. He smiles, says, “You can’t change human nature,” and sips his coffee. He tells her he has a plane to catch, so their rematch will have to be postponed. Abby gives him a cold smile and says they aren’t done yet. He lifts his hands, comments that they seem to be at a stalemate, no moves left to make at the moment. Abby tells him she made her move before she sat down. She tells him (and shocks us) that she put cyanide in his coffee before the waitress served it to him. Not enough to kill him right away, but in the next hour. “A for effort, sunshine,” he tells her, laughing this off, saying she’s not capable of that.

Abby’s jaw goes rigid, and her eyes grow glassy as she spits out the names, “Kate, Jenny, Dorneget, Ziva, Reeves.” She tells him she’s tired of her hero friends dying while villains like King get to live. It appears he may be seeing some truth of that in her eyes. She says that everyone can reach their breaking point, and she’s reached hers. King starts to choke a little, has a hard time breathing. Abby reels off the list of symptoms, all of which he’s having, telling him he’ll be in full cardiac arrest “in, like, 10 minutes.” Unless he happens to have the antidote on him. She pulls out a small bag containing just such an antidote. She tells him to confess, and he’ll live. He tells her she’s insane. Her gaze unwavering, she says, “Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to get the job done.” Go, Abby!!!

He confesses, then Abby stands. She tosses the packet on the table, saying he may not deserve to live, but she’ll never stoop to his level. She turns and walks away. “I’ll be seeing ya,” he calls out, his voice still ragged and not so threatening now. We get a flashback to their last meeting, and Abby saying, “Checkmate.” Then we see King rushing to his car, and we know what’s going to happen next. Torres says, “Going somewhere?” King turns to find Gibbs and Torres closing in behind him, guns drawn and pointed at his chest. He laughs at that, saying they can’t think this is over, to go on and arrest him, he’ll just escape again. That’s when Gibbs walks up and coldcocks him upside the face with the butt of his gun.

Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

Adrenaline pump subsiding, we shift to the morgue where Abby, unhooded now, but her hair still down and loose, is seated next to the open storage unit. The table has been pulled out, and she’s talking to Reeves. Telling him she got the guy, apologizing for taking so long. It’s awful and sad and so very Abby. Now I need tissues again. She tells him she got his wallet back and pulls it out of her pocket. Any chance we had of not being sobbing messes goes out the window when she pulls out the photo of Reeves and his mother. She tells him she knows how important that was to him, and that she knew he’d want to keep it close. She lays the photo next to his head, then tearfully tells him she remembers what he said, about wanting to start a charity in his mother’s name. (And … was I right? YES! So, I’m like what, 1 for 5 in the supposition department? Yeah, well, it’s the best kind of wrong to be. And if I was going to be right about any of it, I’m happiest that it’s this one.) She swears she’ll make that charity happen, that she won’t let him down.

Down in Abby Lab with Torres, Palmer, Bishop and McGee, we learn that, of course Abby didn’t put cyanide in King’s coffee. She used crushed-up Caf-Pow pills. The caffeine overload caused some of the symptoms King was having. The rest were just a result of the power of suggestion. Ninja Abby indeed! Checkmate. Enter Ducky, who asks them if they know what Abby’s big announcement might be. Torres ponders loudly that maybe it’s to apologize to him for locking him in a coffin. (Should we mention there is one conspicuously absent team member here?)

Enter Abby with her leather-studded sling. She apologizes to Torres, but says that’s not her announcement. She’s a bit somber. She tells them she’s going to accompany Reeves’ body to London and see to the arrangements so he’ll be buried next to his mother. They all nod in understanding. McGee asks when she’ll be coming back. There is a long pause, and the camera pans their faces, then back to Abby, as she tells them she won’t be coming back. They’re quietly stunned. She tells them she’s leaving NCIS, explaining that Reeves died saving her life, and she owes him a debt. She tells them about the charity and that she will be working to make that a reality. She says they may not understand, but she’s not just doing it for him, but also for herself. Bishop nods and says if that’s what she wants, they will support her 100%. Ducky agrees, saying, “Well said.”

Palmer looks heartbroken and Ducky prods him to add his support. He says of course he does, he just can’t imagine her not being there. Neither can we, Jimmy. Neither can we. Her voice catching, she tells them it wasn’t an easy decision, that they are her family, and NCIS is her home. She says she has to go with her gut, and her gut is telling her to go. Her gaze shifts to McGee, who still looks confused and not entirely understanding. She says his name, as if asking for his support. He immediately walks over to her and hugs her saying he’s never been so proud to call her his friend. And I need to pause to get another fist full of tissues. Hold on. He says he just can’t imagine saying goodbye to her. She tells him it’s not goodbye for good. Just goodbye for now. Everybody takes turns hugging her. She hugs Ducky last. I look at the clock, thinking … Come on, Show. End this right. Give us the scene we need.

Emily Wickersham as Bishop and Pauley Perrette as Abby in NCIS. (Photo: Patrick McElhenney, CBS)

And just like that, we’re at Gibbs’ place and the doorbell rings. He jogs out from the kitchen and heads to the front door. Our hopes are dashed when he finds an envelope taped to the door, but no one is there. He steps outside and looks around, then heads back inside. He takes out the letter and looks at it by lamplight as we hear Abby’s voiceover, reading the note. She says he’s probably wondering why the retro communication. She tells him she chickened out, that if he’d asked her to stay, she might have wavered. She says she’d do anything for him, that he’d always been there for her, telling her it was going to be OK, because he’d make it OK. And we get a few flashback scenes of the two of them, which is even more heartbreaking because it seems the actors involved couldn’t rise above whatever the heck went so horribly wrong and close this out responsibly and properly. We end with a flashback to the scene where she asks Gibbs to tell her he loves her like a daughter. And he asks her if it will help. She says no, but if he’s going to love her, he needs to, no matter what. (And I want to scream, YES, EXACTLY! So where is that scene now?)

Gibbs seems shaken (me, I just want to shake them both), then he turns and looks out the window. Abby is standing on the sidewalk across the street. He smiles, then hugs himself and points to her. She smiles, makes the universal gesture of friendship. Then she walks away.

And I feel … nothing. (Well, raging disappointment, but your mileage may vary.) I’m tired of ranting about it. I’ll let you pick up the mantle on that.

Pauley Perrette as Abby and Mark Harmon as Gibbs in a season 14 episode of NCIS. (Photo: Sonja Flemming, CBS)

We shift to Abby packing up her office, taking her dolls and other memorabilia, as the Forlorn Song of Goodbye plays on. She leaves them an “Abby’s Lab Guide for Dummies” then picks up Bert the hippo and heads to the door. She takes a long look at her lab, then shuts off the lights. Another moment … and then she walks away.

Well. So many feelings. Most of them OK. A lot of them sad. A few of them deeply, deeply disappointed.

How about you? Let me know what you think. Drop me a line to donna@donnakauffman.com.

While you’re at it, put “Pick Me” in the subject line, and I’ll pick a few winners to snag an early signed copy of my June 26 release, Bluestone & Vine. Speaking of winners, thanks for the notes and entries for last week’s contest. Come on down, Susan Harrison! Drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with a mailing address and I’ll get your prize out to you.

Hard to be all up and chatty, so let’s not pretend. Meet me back here next week, when hey, at least we can stop wondering if Gibbs and Abby will ever have a scene together again. So we’ll have that going for us!

Until then …

Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY (and Wall Street Journal!) bestselling author of 70-plus titles, translated and sold in more than 26 countries around the world. Born into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C., politics, she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, thankfully surrounded by a completely different kind of wildlife. You can check that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). You can write to her at donna@donnakauffman.com or visit her on Facebook or Instagram.

MORE ON HEA: See a fun Down & Dirty interview with Donna and read what she learned while writing Blue Hollow Falls

EVEN MORE: See more of Donna’s NCIS posts